


Flash Moments

by chaoticlivi



Category: Soul Eater
Genre: A little bit of everything, Alcohol, Cameos, Domestic Bliss, Domestic Fluff, Drabble Collection, Drinking, F/M, Flash Fic, Flash Fiction, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Not Really Character Death, blood mention
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-05
Updated: 2017-11-27
Packaged: 2018-08-29 03:46:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 32
Words: 53,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8474161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaoticlivi/pseuds/chaoticlivi
Summary: This is where I put all my tiny little short stories. Mostly fluff, but also some other random stuff. Please feel free to skip around from short to short - whatever interests you!





	1. First short stories from 2012

**Author's Note:**

> This chapter contains my very first few short stories. Which...leaves more room for embarrassment. Oh, well.

**1\. cake**

_(a compressed mass of matter)_

"Maka!" Soul stood in front of the mirror, gingerly poking a spot on his neck. "You caked so much freakin' makeup on that it's just more obvious now."

She put the makeup set down on the sink dejectedly. "Well, I guess I'll just have to keep trying...or we could rinse it off and start again..."

He grimaced. It wasn't that he didn't want to hide the thing too, but they'd been at this for an _hour_.

"Come on, Soul, the whole school can't see that I gave you a...a hickey..." She sighed, then eyed it and said in a small voice, "It was an accident, I swear. I can't believe I got so overenthusiastic like that..."

Soul moved toward her and smirked. "I can. By the way," he added in the deepest, huskiest voice he could possibly muster, "that was kinda hot."

Maka blushed, but couldn't seem to hold back a little grin. "I...I always thought you'd be the one doing stuff like that. Because of...you know. Your teeth."

"Nah. I'm used to 'em. They're not really that sharp anyway. I won't leave marks that easily." He edged close enough that he knew she'd feel his breath on her ear as he spoke. "Unless you _want_ me to..."

* * *

_**2\. entangled** _ _(involved in a difficult situation, perplexed)_

_Shit shit shit_ , Soul thought as his left leg buckled under extreme pain in his Achilles' tendon. Somewhere in the background, he could hear sinister laughter and his rental car keys dropping to the pavement.

An unfamiliar, leering face crawled out from underneath the car. Soul tried to transform his right arm into a scythe so he could fight from the ground.

His left arm transformed instead.

He paused, a little confused, but decided he could _try_ using his left arm...

His right arm, still fleshy and useless, starting swinging around.

"What - what the hell is going on?!" he growled through gritted teeth. For every command his brain gave to one arm or leg, the opposite would spring into action. And it wasn't even possible to control both at once.

All he'd wanted to do was go to the damn _grocery store_.

"Nerve bewitchment," his assailant said in a sing-song voice. "You may not know me, but I definitely know you," he added through a smile like cyanide. He was wiping off a small glowing blade, then tucked it away and held up a syringe full of something white.

Soul was starting to thrash around in vain, movements uncontrolled, ankle bleeding profusely, as the needle approached the side of his neck.

Then a large book came flying out of nowhere and collided with the man's head. The syringe fell harmlessly to the ground.

"I won't let you touch my weapon, you bastard," said Maka's voice. Soul could practically feel the relief rush through his veins as she kneeled down and grabbed his hand urgently. "Can you transform, Soul?"

He tried. It hurt like hell but if he focused on resonating with Maka's soul and transforming his whole body instead of what was happening with his limbs, he would be able to do it...

Maka hefted him into the air. "And now you're going to see why messing with us is a bad idea," she said.

* * *

_**3\. tranquil** _ _(free from turmoil, calm)_

This is a good example of how the apartment is when nothing else is going on:

Soul is lying on his bed, eyes closed but not sleeping. He's listening to complex jazz music. It's playing as loudly as he can get away with. He's listening intently, following the strands of notes and visualizing their paths in his mind. They're tangling together, untangling now, swelling and falling. They make him think of colors and shapes and, eventually, places; places he's been as well as scenery he can only imagine. He focuses on them to meditate, to return to a place of calm.

He can't see souls like Maka can. But he still knows she's here, because he saw her go into her room. She's in a good mood, if a little overexcited about some book. Sometimes she doesn't like to be around people while she's reading because her focus gets so intense. The idea makes him smirk.

Soul doesn't care much for the typical "intellectual pursuit." But he's still always got a lot going on in his mind. To those thoughts he dozes off.

Maka is just finishing a book. This time she's lounging on her own bed. She puts the enormous tome down and sighs contentedly, staring at the ceiling while she processes what she's learned. She feels that her world has been expanded a bit; now she knows about people and things and places she might never have encountered without this book. Knowledge, even just the knowledge that something exists, is like a vague connection to something. Maka can almost feel her connections all over the globe.

She hears some jazz playing from Soul's bedroom, just below the level where she would complain about it if she were studying. Since their trials in the Book of Eibon, Maka no longer feels threatened by music.

She doesn't really "get it," still, but she feels free to listen and ponder for a while. This piece could be quite enjoyable, actually. Soul has said she should "just stop thinking so much" when she tries to understand music. Maka doesn't exactly know how to do that. She muses for a while about what that could mean, even.

But it's getting late. Maka grudgingly gets up off the bed to go start dinner.

Blair is napping in the slanted afternoon sunlight on the floor, eyes closed in contentment. Later tonight, she will go snooping through her roommates' personal things. But for now, she's just letting the golden sun wash over her. She opens a smug eye as Maka walks past.

* * *

_**4\. go** _ _(to proceed)_

Soul wondered whether he should follow her out.

She'd been so upset. She had put down the phone and strode swiftly, stiffly to the door. Her voice cracked as she said, "I'll be back...later."

Yeah...he should give her a little time to cool down, but then go. She might need to be reminded that he's here.

He found her lying on her back on a park bench. There was no one around, and she had her eyes closed, but she didn't look lax enough to be asleep. She seemed to have been crying recently but was calm at the moment.

"Hey Maka," he began. He spoke slowly and cautiously, not entirely sure he was even welcome here. "Look, I'm pretty sure your mother just has some personal issues to work out. And I _know_ it's nothing about you."

She waited for him to finish, then sat up and patted the spot on the bench next to her, where he sat down. They both stared off into the sky.

"Soul. I've been thinking a lot. And I really wanted to tell you that I'm glad you're here."

* * *

_**5\. temple** _ _(a place devoted to worship)_

"This is where you will worship your god from now on," Black Star crowed, dramatically gesturing at the interior of the new apartment. "And you." He pointed directly at Soul. "I challenge you to battle me...with video games!"

"Yeah, you're on." Soul smirked. "Let me show you how it's done."

Maka rolled her eyes.

"Here, while they're doing that, I'll show you around," Tsubaki said. "How've you been? We haven't had much time to talk lately," she said as they rounded the corner to tour the bedroom. The single bedroom.

"Not much has changed, really," Maka answered honestly. "We've been as busy in school as you and Black Star have." She glanced around and then asked quietly, "Tsubaki. Is it - is it weird? Sleeping in the same room with Black Star?"

Tsubaki smiled. "Not at all. Our old place only had one bedroom, so we're used to it. This time we decided it wouldn't be worth the extra rent a second one would cost.

Maka nodded, but still looked unsure of herself. "So I guess you guys didn't have to actually agree to it in the first place. It's not like you had to ask him or anything."

Tsubaki gave Maka a sly little grin. "This isn't entirely about me and Black Star, is it?"

* * *

_**6\. eternity** _ _(forever)_

What a New Year's Eve - nothing but Shibusen missions all day.

The one benefit was being outside five minutes before midnight in Nevada, having taken out the last evil soul of the night.

"Oh! Soul!" Maka said. "It's almost time for the Death City fireworks and we can see them from here...let's just watch them and go home after."

"Uhh...okay," Soul said, too tired to argue even though all he wanted to do was collapse on his bed.

They sat on a rock and stared expectantly into space - into the patch of eternity where they were expecting fireworks to appear shortly.

... _Eternity, huh?_ Now would probably be as good a time as any. Heart pounding, Soul reached for his meister's hand. She stiffened for a moment in surprise, but then leaned her head, wordlessly, against his shoulder.

"Ah, they're starting," she breathed softly. The first firework exploded in the sky.

Later that night, she clung to him more tightly than usual on the motorcycle as they rode peacefully toward eternity together.

* * *

_**7\. mass** _ _(a large, disorganized bundle)_

As the door swung open, Tsubaki, Black Star, and Death the Kid were welcomed to Soul and Maka's apartment by a hunched figure covered in a burrito of blankets.

"Oh, you really did need help," Kid said.

"Thanks," Maka mumbled as Tsubaki handed her a pair of thick, heavy paper bags. "Uh...you didn't all have to come..."

"Sure we did!" Black Star pointed at Soul, who was sniffling and sneezing in a mass of rumpled blankets, messy hair, and used tissues on one of the couches. "See? You need us to help take care of you! And being the great me, well," he grinned, "there's no way I'm gonna get sick from you guys!"

"You and Tsubaki already had this flu." Black Star seemed to ignore this. Maka looked at the only other woman in the room for help.

"We'll only be here for a little while," Tsubaki assured her. "I'll warm the soup for you two and tidy up a little bit."

Kid started returning the symmetry to anything which could potentially have been symmetrical but was not at the time.

"Aren't you gonna get sick, too?" Soul muttered from deep inside a comforter.

"I'm a shinigami." His tone was very matter-of-fact. "I warned Liz and Patty that they could get sick if they try to visit, but they do send their best wishes. They are the ones who bought your groceries, and they also sent this." He put a "Get Well" card and a small box (presumably full of chocolate) on the kitchen table.

Kid departed before too long, after giving the duo a rare genuine smile and telling them to feel better soon. Black Star and Tsubaki stayed slightly longer just to chat, but when Soul and Maka were obviously getting ready to fall asleep they left as well.

"At least they're reliable," Soul said to his partner across the coffee table after all their friends left.

"Mm. They are." She smiled wanly into her own pillow. "I'm glad Black Star didn't try to write on our faces this time."

"Heh. He's growing up."

* * *

_**8\. tapestry** _ _(a heavy handwoven fabric with a complex design used as a wall hanging)_

"This...I have to admire this," Kid was saying in awe. He stood in front of a glass case containing an old tapestry.

"You've been-" Liz pulled on his arm in vain. "-'admiring' it for a full hour now!"

"Such a perfectly symmetrical weave...I can't even believe someone did this by hand. And four hundred years ago, also."

Soul rolled his eyes. "Happy birthday, Maka. Didn't you know bringing Kid, Patty, and Black Star to the museum is the worst idea ever?"

Maka pouted. "But that's how I wanted to celebrate! If you don't like it, why don't you leave?"

Her weapon smirked. "Because if I do, you'll get all upset later, and you'll Chop me into oblivion."

Maka's retort was interrupted by a crashing sound.

"Hey," Black Star suddenly yawned. "Where's Patty?"

"Besides," Soul added hastily, "a cool guy wouldn't leave his partner alone with these freak shows on her birthday."

* * *

_**9\. delinquent** _ _(someone who is guilty of a misdeed)_

"Soul Eater."

Soul turned around to see Spirit Albarn staring stonily in his direction.

"Uh...yeah? What is it, old man?"

The older Death Scythe approached, looking stern but not overtly hostile. Soul simply stared him down as Spirit put a hand on his shoulder.

"Listen, Soul." His voice was softer now. "I still think you look like a little delinquent. But I know you've been good to Maka because you care about her, and that's what matters. So as her father, I'm saying now - thank you. And keep being good. Don't do anything stupid or I'll kill you."

The younger scythe watched for a moment as Spirit walked away. "Hey! Where the hell did that come from?"

Spirit paused and spoke without looking back. "I know what's going on, Soul. And if I want to have a relationship with my daughter at all, I know that I'm going to have to accept you."

* * *

_**10\. natural** _ _(produced by nature; un-tampered with; not artificial)_

Maka's eyes.

They're as natural as the rest of her. Maybe the association happens just because they're green, and he associates green with nature like everyone else seems to.

But it might also be because they strike that perfect balance of vibrancy and subtlety. They're not flashy. They're not that chemical green color, the kind that appears in the paint sets she messes around with on occasion. She also never, ever puts makeup on them - at least not unless Liz and Patty forcibly pin her down and apply it.

But they stand out anyway. They can be startling. First of all, they're so big. Sometimes he thinks they're actually surrounding him, especially if he suspects she's stealing glances at his soul. They're also...really _warm_. Even though they're green and fire isn't green, he can see a fire in them anyway.

When she gets depressed, he can see the dull embers barely smoldering and he wants to stoke them. When she's angry, her irises are pinpoints of flame. When she's determined, the sparks in those eyes are contagious. When she's happy, they're like hearth flames. They're the color of leaves, real natural springtime leaves in places that aren't as dry as Death City.

Soul blearily blinks these stupid metaphors away. Those comparisons are kind of trite. She just has naturally pretty eyes; there's nothing else like them anywhere.

* * *

**Extra: I wrote this for "entangled" first, then reread the definition of entangled and decided the prompt wouldn't really fit the uh...mood that the definition put me in. But I liked the results anyway and decided to keep them as their own thing.**

This time he didn't hold her hand as usual. He shifted his own in a way that made her glance at him questioningly, as if afraid he might pull away; but Soul only wanted to weave his fingers between hers.

Maka allowed herself a smile.

He focused all of his recent realizations into that one physical connection, his thoughts flowing from his mind to that hand-hold. He squeezed her hand as tightly as he could while remaining gentle, stroking her finger with his thumb.

_Don't get all wrapped up in their bullshit. You're the perfect meister for me. We fit together like pieces of a puzzle or like Yin and Yang. You're the only one who's ever saved me from myself and still been proud of me even though you had to do that. So next time someone tells you you're not 'worthy' of me, feel free to laugh, because I sure will._

They weren't resonating so she couldn't exactly read his mind. But Soul knew that with her incredible ability to read souls, she'd receive everything he was sending her.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Second chunk of flash fic from 2012.

**dock**

Soul and Black Star were being forced by brain freeze to eat their ice cream slowly. The girls - even Maka - had gone off shopping somewhere, and Kid was having trouble choosing a flavor back at the vendor's stand because all of the buckets of ice cream were already scooped asymmetrically. He wasn't having a _complete_ breakdown, though, which was quite an improvement.

The two friends decided to sit at the edge of the dock, legs dangling toward the water. Everything smelled like the ocean - like gas for the boats and salty water and fish, both alive and dead. There was also the smell of pavement and wood which had been baking in the sun all day. At the end of the dock that transitioned to the sidewalk were fragments of mollusk shells where seagulls had dropped them so they would break open.

Soul was briefly worried that Black Star was going to try to be a smartass, shove him off the edge and into the water, and eat both their ice cream sundaes.

But Black Star had other ways to go about being a smartass.

"Dude, I totally know about you and Maka."

Soul hesitated for only a fraction of a second before shoving more ice cream into his mouth. "What about us?" he asked around it nonchalantly.

"Don't play stupid." Black Star grinned, slurping down some of his own snack. "You're totally gaga over her. Even I'm noticing the way you look at her and how you're touching her all the time. If I'm noticing it, it must be pretty obvious, right?"

"Nope. You're wrong," Soul said automatically.

"Whatever," Black Star laughed. "Either you're lying or you're in denial."

There was a long, rather pregnant silence.

Soul knew full well that Black Star was entirely correct. Honestly, he even _wanted_ his friend to know, to be able to let all this internal pressure out a little bit. But he doubted Black Star's secret-keeping abilities.

"Heh. Even if that were true, there's no way I would tell you. You couldn't keep a secret if your life depended on it."

"Seriously? How could you speak that way of me!?" Black Star roared incredulously.

Soul simply smirked and punched him lightly in the arm. "You know it's true."

Black Star didn't respond with a punch. Instead he looked really serious, and it startled Soul; this wasn't a side of his friend he saw often.

"That's not true at all, Soul," he said. "Look, if I know it's important, I can keep it. Okay, maybe...maybe not from Tsubaki. But she's even more trustworthy than I am, right? And we would never tell Maka or anyone else. I know I'm a really big, loud guy, but if I think it's important to you, I swear no one else will ever know."

Soul looked down at his ice cream, contemplating.

"Okay. But you can never tell anyone, okay? Or I'll kill you."

"Pfft. No you won't."

"Then I'll...I dunno, but you'll regret it."

"Spit it out, dude."

Soul took a deep breath and said very quietly, "You were right. About Maka."

Black Star grinned hugely and slapped him hard on the back. "I knew it!" he shouted triumphantly.

"Keep it down," Soul hissed, wondering if he had been wrong to believe Black Star's little speech.

"But I don't know why you think it has to be such a big secret," Black Star continued, keeping his voice down this time. "I mean it's pretty obvious that she likes you too..."

* * *

_**radiation** _

"Damn it's c-cold," Soul shivered. He picked up his cup from the coffee table, took a sip, and made a grumpy face. "Even this stuff is getting cold faster than it usually does. I was gone for like five minutes!"

"Mmm. I still can't believe we ended up in the one room with the broken radiator."

"This whole place is sketchy, if you ask me," Soul said sourly. "Let's never stay in one of these chains again. Also, how is it fair that you get the only big blanket?" He regarded his meister, who reclined on the couch reading, covered by a huge, thick comforter.

She sighed at him and rolled her eyes, then sat up and lifted the blanket. "Oh just come on. I knew you were gonna complain about that."

Soul hesitated, studying Maka. She wanted him...under the blanket with her?

When the shadow of a doubt crossed her expression, though, and she started to drop the blanket back down, Soul realized that was exactly what she was offering and he'd just offended her by hesitating. So he rushed forward in two quick strides and plunked himself down onto the couch, wrapping himself up in a portion of the blanket next to her.

"Thanks," he muttered.

The rest of the night, they remained angled toward each other, so that by the time they awoke in a flurry of awkward coughs and blushing she had been leaning on his shoulder and his chin was propped against the crown of her head.

* * *

_**emerald** _

They were playing tag. Like children. Eighteen years old and playing tag.

Who could blame them, though? After finishing the mission they'd been left with a glorious summer evening in an idyllic, newly-peaceful countryside. At the end of the battle Patty had flopped down on the grass and pointed at a cloud that looked like her favorite African mammal. Liz had joined her, and then Tsubaki and Black Star; Soul and Maka glanced at each other, grinned, and gladly relaxed on the soft grass. Even Kid tentatively decided he could handle lying on the ground here.

It was only a matter of time before the more hyper members of the group got antsy, though. Soon a game of tag was instigated.

Maka raced as fast as she could toward Soul. Yeah, he was a decent runner, but against her he stood no chance. In desperation he pushed his legs as fast as they could possibly run - painfully fast - and then tried to make a feint in the other direction.

Too bad, though. She was ready. Maka launched herself at her partner, crashing into him considerably harder than she intended, and wrapped her arms around him out of instinct to keep him from rolling away and escaping; then they both fell. As they hit the ground hard the smell of soil and grass filled their noses.

It took almost no time for them to recover from the shock of hitting the ground, being used to falling and getting hit with things, and Maka started to laugh. Soul scowled at first, but couldn't stay angry, and soon she was pulling him toward her, trying to get him to roll with her through the soft grass. Soul's smell, hair and clothes and something she couldn't exactly name, mingled with the smell of summer - grass and dirt and sunlight.

He obliged, turning around to surprise her by wrestling playfully. Usually the two avoided public displays of affection, but everyone else was still busy and they were pushing their hands against each other fighting for some kind of imaginary dominance and her lips were so damn soft and kissable.

And she couldn't resist his kisses.

Soon they were taking turns being on top, rolling back and forth through a small sun-dappled patch. Mostly they drank in the sight of each other as they kissed - eyes, lips, noses, hair. On the occasion that they looked away, perhaps to check on whether their friends had started staring, there were shades of green everywhere, from the yellow-green backlit leaves in the trees to the deep emerald shadows close to the Earth.


	3. SoulxMaka Week 2013

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SoulxMaka Week 2013! I did a graphic for Day 1, which is why it isn't here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings unique to this chapter for blood and...character death? contemplations of the afterlife? if you are triggered by those.

**Day 2: Trust**

It took Spirit a long time to come around.

It was probably a number of factors. Soul really was a delinquent-looking little punk, especially in those early days - but Spirit was also more than likely projecting, he later realized with shame. He would assume every guy who went anywhere near his daughter was a hopeless lech because that's what he saw in himself.

When Soul and Maka were young, still kids despite all of their responsibilities, Spirit gave Soul a lot of difficulty. Deep down, he trusted Maka to pick a good partner - there must, he reasoned, have been something worthy about that boy because his daughter was not stupid enough to pick a bad weapon. But Spirit was still hurt that she wouldn't forgive him - she'd spout things about all the sleaze inherent in men - and then she would turn around and trust Soul with her life.

Besides, Soul was - in the eyes of an overly protective father - a gormless little brat. Spirit didn't even know where the boy came from, but he was slouchy and lazy and disrespectful - he even did his best to come across that way on purpose. And the older scythe did not approve.

Things in Spirit's mind changed pretty quickly after Soul got slashed across the chest by Crona and Ragnarok, though.

At first, he didn't know exactly what had happened, only that someone his daughter cared about very much had been put on the verge of death. He realized that while he doubted he'd ever exactly enjoy Soul's company, he had no actual hatred for the kid and would never want to see him die. Then after he learned the whole story (that Soul wasn't merely injured, he had thrown himself in front of Maka to protect her) his grudging respect for a fellow weapon became real affection.

Spirit still felt obligated not to go too easy. It was a father's job, he reasoned, to give any guy who got close to Maka a run for his money. He would sometimes make little verbal jabs at Soul and at other times be perfectly nice - congratulating the young scythe on the acquisition of a witch's soul, asking for help with the father-daughter relationship.

And eventually, Spirit began to really, truly trust Soul. It was bittersweet, because by this point, he knew and understood why his trust was nearly worthless to both Soul and Maka. But it was still such a nice difference from how things had been in the beginning. Having faith in another person felt good.

One fine day, Spirit walked into Deathbucks and noticed that his daughter and her weapon were studying there - at least, Maka was studying; Soul was sipping away at some kind of beverage, looking distracted. Spirit saw the young scythe lean over to casually kiss Maka's forehead while she busied herself over a textbook. She glanced up, grinned wryly, and demanded that Soul do his schoolwork as she pointed at his neglected books.

Then when he responded with a sulky expression, she gave him a quick kiss on the lips before returning to her own studying and coffee.

Even now, Spirit briefly considered making some sort of threat, because it is damn near impossible to resist the Protective Fatherly Impulse. But they were too old for meddlesome parents - too grown-up, too smart, too close. A moment later they turned around and caught his eye and Soul looked panicked, while Maka put her palm to her face.

Spirit walked forward toward the young pair and put his hand on Soul's shoulder, grinning, because he knew what they were expecting.

"Calm down. I'm not gonna throw a public tantrum," he said serenely. "It's pretty hard to stop being an overprotective dad, but I realized a long time ago that Maka is the only one who has the right to choose her friends. And weapon. And, ah, boyfriends. And guess what?"

"What?" Soul asked, a little nervous. Maka was watching as though she couldn't believe how well her crazy father was taking all this; no doubt she had assumed she'd be responsible for dragging his sobbing ass out of the building if he caught them kissing.

"I think you're already a better partner than I ever was."

**Day 3: Protection**

"Sometimes I can't believe I used to live here," Soul mumbled as he felt the first few cold raindrops on his nose. "New England is so gross."

"I kinda like it though," Maka said cheerfully. "It's different." Her chipper words did not match the atmosphere, or the knowledge that they had spent six hours in the raw, cold weather hunting an enemy who was nowhere to be found.

The rain increased; Soul opened the small umbrella they had brought. The two jostled and tried to fit underneath but it was no use - poor planning had given them a single-person umbrella.

"It's okay - you can use it," Soul said, handing it over.

"Huh?" Maka looked confused. "You can have it. I'll be fine."

"No way," he insisted. "You'll catch a cold."

"But if I take it, then you'll catch a cold," Maka argued.

Soul shrugged. "Maka, just let me help you. Anyway, catching a cold is really no big deal."

She grinned wryly. "Then why don't you hang on to it and let me catch the cold?"

"The weapon protects the meister," Soul insisted. Maka rolled her eyes but knew she wouldn't get out of this and took the umbrella just in time to avoid the oncoming downpour.

When they got back to the hotel, Maka turned and got a look at her partner for the first time since arguing about the umbrella, then promptly burst into laughter. He looked like he'd fallen in the dunk tank at a carnival.

"What?" he asked sulkily, knowing full well what she was laughing at.

"Come on, we gotta get changed," she giggled as she hit the elevator button. He was shivering violently, soaked to the bone, and when they got back to the room, she wordlessly fished a bunch of dry clothes out of his suitcase.

"Change," she commanded, and like the obedient creature he was, Soul went to the bathroom to change. She'd grabbed him a pair of black sweat pants, a nondescript gray tee shirt, and some red boxers with a bone pattern. He mused on whether she'd caught the innuendo there. Changing from sopping wet, ragged clothes into soft, clean, dry cotton felt damn incredible. He left the bathroom and collapsed onto one of the two beds, shutting his eyes and focusing on the warmth and softness of the bed and his clothes.

Half an hour later, he woke up sneezing, and Maka was there with a warm cup of the hotel's lemon tea. Soul accepted it gratefully.

"You fell asleep without a blanket on you or anything," Maka muttered, pulling up the one from the bottom of the bed to cover her weapon.

"I thought you couldn't get a cold from the weather," Soul smirked. She was being cute and worrying about him.

"You can't get a cold directly from the weather, but being cold can lower your immune functioning and make you more likely to get sick, and we've been walking around all day, so your body will be tired," Maka said matter-of-factly.

Then, with very little warning, she climbed into the bed and put her arm around him, lying down at his side.

"What the—" Soul started.

"Warmin' you up," Maka mumbled into the pillow. She wouldn't make eye contact, but her face was beet red. Soul knew she was doing it just because she wanted to, possibly even out of a sense of guilt. He slyly lifted the blanket, along with an eyebrow.

"Pfft. Now you're trying to sleep without a blanket on you." He tossed half of the blanket over her, put the empty tea cup on the table, and settled in at eye-level with his meister.

They napped for two hours, then woke up awkwardly blushing because they hadn't expected to be spooning. Maka ended up as the big spoon. They still didn't move for a while.

**Day 4: Fight**

It was odd, Maka mused, how gentle he could be both in tone and in deed, even when he was angry. He usually seemed so rough around the edges.

They'd taken to patching up anything short of a life-threatening injury after each battle, because going all the way to a hospital or clinic was far too time-consuming. Usually, as the meister, Maka was the one with more serious cuts.

Most of the time, they would be able to walk back to the hotel room and take off their bloody clothes. (They went through a lot of clothes.) They'd start by cleaning and dressing the wounds they could reach themselves, and then take turns with whatever was left.

Soul dabbed at her injuries as gently as he could with a cotton ball and some disinfectant that burned on contact. She was lying down on the bed, and she wasn't wearing a shirt (which Soul simply tried not to think about, with mixed success). The contact with the wound made her flinch.

This time, they were so tired of fighting. It had been a week straight of nothing but battle after battle each day with too-short breaks for food and sleep at night, since they had discovered that what was believed to be one monster was actually a den of fifty nearly-identical monsters. Even Shibusen didn't usually work its meisters and weapons this hard, but it was an emergency situation and Maka and Soul were up for the job.

They'd fought with each other, too - not about serious things. About stupid things that were easy to get over. Sometimes it bordered on flirting. Sometimes that was tiring, too, but sometimes it was energizing.

Soul couldn't help but smile as he carefully smoothed a bandage over the deepest cut. It would be hard to get her to admit to any of the higher-ups just how exhausted she was; she would share with him (probably because she couldn't hide it from him anyway), but if he told Lord Death or Stein or Death Scythe, she would huff indignantly and say he was lying.

Because deep down, she was a fighter, and the world needed her, and sharing her exhaustion would just burden everyone else.

"Maka," he said out loud, without much thought, because he liked the way the word felt on his tongue.

"Hmm?"

"Ah, just…never mind."

She made a slightly disappointed sound but didn't ask any more.

It didn't take much longer to finish the bandaging. "Thank you, Soul, she said, before she tossed a pillow at his head and told him to turn around so she could put her shirt back on. He snickered and obliged.

Maka tossed another pillow at his head. "Okay. I'm done."

"Hey, no fair," Soul complained more loudly than necessary. "We can't have a fair pillow fight if you're hurt."

"I wasn't trying to start a pillow fight, but that's a good idea. How about a rain check?"

xxx

Two days later they were back at the front door of their own apartment, discussing what dinner would be.

"Let's go out. I don't feel like cooking."

"Cool," Soul said. "How about that seafood place?"

"Oh," Maka answered. "I'd rather have Thai."

"Come on, we always have Thai."

"No we don't," she insisted. "We had pizza last time."

"So? That was one time out of about a million."

She had disappeared into her room, and Soul wasn't sure what she was doing in there, but as soon as he turned his back he was hit with a pillow.

"Maka!"

"I'm feeling a lot better, Soul," she said, eyes sparkling, "and there's only one way to decide where to eat."

He dashed to his own room and grabbed _two_ pillows, planning to catch hers between them. It was a clumsy process, and while he had the advantage of two pillows, her one pillow was easier to use and she dodged him easily. Finally, through a flurry of fabric, she managed to articulate, "W - wait! How do we know who won?"

"I dunno," Soul answered, batting at her face with a pillow and pausing to raise an eyebrow. "You started it."

**Day 5: Blood**

She'd had enough strength to finish off the Rail Tracer - but then she'd fallen to the ground, too hurt to walk anywhere as the adrenaline faded.

As he held her close, she noticed that he was shaking. Well, she was shaking a bit too, she admitted. She wanted to move her hand, which rested against Soul's chest, but it hurt too much, so she just looked at (what should have been) her pure white glove instead. It was covered in blood.

"Soul, you're— you're bleeding."

"That's your blood, dummy," he said, on his way up the stairs with her in his arms; his voice was tense, in the way of someone trying and failing to act casual. Poster advertisements (lawyers, movies, airlines) flew by in her peripheral vision, and she wasn't entirely certain why she'd bothered to notice them through the haze of pain. Soul had an enormous, gaping cut on his shoulder. Didn't it hurt to carry her up the subway stairs like this?

She supposed she had it worse than he did after all. They wouldn't be patching this up on their own; instead, they would be hurrying back to the rendezvous point to get in touch with Kim, Jackie, Stein, and Marie.

She threw up again, and again it was all blood. Soul almost tripped when he felt her painful spasm and looked down, eyes going wide, but he did not stop moving. Maka could feel her vision starting to fade to black, but she angrily wrestled it back into her grasp. It hurt to be jostled around as Soul dodged down alleyways and sidewalks, but she didn't complain because she knew he was trying to move fast. Also, complaining took energy.

Then she felt him stop and swear. "Shit!"

"What's wrong?" Maka asked weakly.

"We're at the bridge but the stupid fucking thing is up right now!"

Maka felt her heart sink. All told, they'd probably be standing here for ten minutes before the bridge was back in position for foot and vehicle traffic, and there was no one around to lower it - the city was near-abandoned now and the bridge was on an automatic timer. It was no use to go anywhere else - any other crossing would take at least as long to reach, and their teammates were on the other side of the river.

She wondered if it was worth hoping that Kim and Jackie might find them from the air. She doubted it, since no one knew what was going on, and it brought on a wave of pain and nausea.

She could feel Soul's mood, too, and it was almost as painful as her physical injuries. He was scared, confused, angry, impatient, guilty, and sad, among other things, and his mind buzzed with rage at the world.

He looked down and blinked when he felt her soul flutter lightly against his in an effort to reassure him. He seemed to realize that he was upsetting her; he took a deep breath and closed his eyes, standing in one place waiting for the bridge.

Soul was pensive for a few minutes, obviously trying out different thoughts. Some were probably attempts at calming down, while others were likely attempts at finding solutions.

Then Maka coughed up some more blood on this jacket.

"Sorry," she said weakly.

"Don't apologize for that," he answered, sounding deeply pained.

They had only been standing around for about two minutes - none of the boats were even finished going through the bridge - and it was really, really hard to focus on anything comforting, only on how hard her body seemed to be working just to stay still and awake.

Before she realized what was happening, Soul put his forehead to hers and invited her to a gentle, loose soul resonance. She was able to do that, and hoped very much that he wouldn't feel too much pain through the link.

Then there was music.

This was not a song he'd played before. In its notes, he wove thoughts of healing and comfort, of the people who would be helping them in only a matter of minutes, of soft beds and Marie's tea and everyone's laughter. Maka found some strength, enough strength to smile, and she got goosebumps that didn't even hurt as she realized that yes, she would be fine, they would make it to the checkpoint.

The bridge began to move back into place for them.

xxx

"It was really easy to heal Maka," Kim said brightly. "What'd you do?"

"Huh?" Soul asked in confusion.

"Usually when I use healing magic," she started, "I need to concentrate a lot. It's a tricky process. It was noticeably easier to heal Maka, which is weird because that kishin caused a lot of internal and external damage. It seems like you must have done something to start her healing before I even got there."

Soul smiled. "I'm not completely sure, although I did play the piano for her when we got delayed for a few minutes." He glanced at Maka, who slept peacefully in the makeshift bed Stein and Marie had to offer, now clean, bandaged, and healing inside and out. She was smiling.

**Day 6: Demon**

First Maka was in bed, mind fading into the blissful oblivion of sleep. Then she felt Soul calling for her and she answered in a mysterious way even she didn't fully understand, still in the fog of slumber.

She was suddenly aware of her surroundings, a candlelit place with red curtains instead of walls. She could hear voices around the other side of one of the curtains: Soul and Little Ogre. Maka glanced down and noted that she was in her Black Room dress.

"Doesn't it ever bother you, not being special?" Little Ogre was asking.

"I have no idea what you're talking about, you jackass. Shut up," Soul answered.

"Sure you do. You have such a good meister - and she has such a garden-variety weapon."

"Weren't you ranting just yesterday about how powerful I can be?"

"Well, sure, but it's not really about power, is it? It's about…who you are."

"Why don't you go over there in the corner and pick your nose or something? You little creep."

"Now, now, Evans. Don't shoot the messenger."

Soul was quiet for a long moment. "I told you to leave Maka out of this."

"Because it reminds you of how you'll never measure up to her?"

"Get the fuck out," Soul snarled, pointing to an area apparently leading nowhere, enough fury on his face to startle the black-blood parasite.

Maka chose that moment to step forward from the curtained shadows.

"You still don't know I think you're the best partner in the world?" she asked, looking skeptical and maybe a little affronted.

Soul stared. "Huh? You again? Where'd you come from?"

"You called me in your sleep, Soul, I could feel it," she said. "Anyway, what the hell is going on? You dragged me into a fight with this jerk for some reason, right?" She gestured dismissively toward the ogre, who scowled.

"Uh, not on purpose." Soul scratched the back of his head in genuine confusion.

"Well, you really wanted her here," Little Ogre said. "As soon as we started talking, your soul reached out for her - because you're too weak-minded to argue with me alone, right?"

"I wasn't doing anything intentional," the weapon insisted. "Go back to bed, Maka. Leave."

Annoying though it was to be immediately told off, Maka kept her cool and walked over to Soul, resting her hand on his arm. "No."

"What do you mean, 'no'? You can't just hang around in my soul without my permission!"

"I'll leave, but hear me out. Maybe it's important to talk about."

Soul glared, and then sighed. "Yeah. Fine. Whatever."

Maka turned an icy stare to the demon. "Go away."

"Fine, fine, I'm going. I know when I'm not wanted," the creature shrugged. Both doubted that he was really going very far, though.

"Now what is this about, Soul?"

"Nothing, really," he insisted again. "I don't even know why you're here."

"The Black Blood takes advantage of your insecurities," Maka continued. "I know there was something to what he said. Don't play dumb with me."

Soul rolled his eyes and spoke impatiently, as though he was listing off memorized dates for a history exam.

"Honestly, sometimes I still feel like you're a great meister and I'm just some decent weapon who was lucky enough to end up with you. Maybe I'm not bad, but I'm not really that great either." He knew there was no need to be calling himself mediocre. It had taken years, but he had finally gained some surety of his competence. And yet…

"What? I - you're - I couldn't imagine being strong with another weapon like I am with you. You really are that great."

"It's not just that. It's other stuff. It's…hard to explain. There are a lot of things I admire about who you are, and I don't know if I have anything like that." He couldn't make eye contact.

"No, Soul. I first picked you because I saw something special in you, and don't you dare tell me I was wrong, because I wasn't. You're a great partner. And you know what else?" she continued, grabbing his tie and yanking him toward her.

"Huh?"

"I'm not just talking about a _weapon partner_ ," Maka whispered, planting a soft, warm kiss on Soul's parted lips. He could only stare as she drew back and added, "Since we met, I've always loved the way you play the piano, because you put so much of yourself into it. That's not because you're my weapon. You weren't my weapon at the time. That's because you're _you_. You were the first boy I really trusted, and you've proven over and over again that I was _right_ to trust you."

By this time, Soul's face felt so hot he was surprised his eyebrows hadn't been set on fire. Later he would wish he'd come back with some kind of compliment for her, but at that moment he was almost speechless. "How could I not?" he muttered softly.

"Don't think I'm done with you yet," she said. "I could go on about how you've changed and become the cool guy you wanted to be as a kid, or how you're such a loyal friend, or how you're a safe place for me. Or how you act like you don't care but you really do. I could go on and on, Soul."

"Th…thanks," he murmured. Soul had never been that great at taking compliments. "I didn't mean to drag you into this."

"I'm glad to be here," Maka answered, and she stepped forward to offer him a hug. He finally loosened up enough to accept it, kissing her hair before even thinking about it. When he did, she leaned back to kiss him again, and he returned it enthusiastically.

**Day 7: Goodbye**

"I wonder who'll be the next to rent our apartment," Maka sighed, sparing a last glance around. She felt a strange sort of…groundlessness looking through the barren rooms. Even Soul's posters were gone, packed up and hauled away already with the rest of their belongings, bound for a new wall in their new abode.

"I dunno," Soul said. "Some students, probably."

"I just need to say goodbye to this place one more time," she muttered quietly, mostly to herself. He accompanied her as she strolled from room to room, silent most of the time.

It was strange, as though the apartment was haunted by the ghosts of still-living people. Maka could still see all their belongings in her mind's eye, as though they were in the empty spaces, and she could still see their friends in each room.

She heard echoes of Black Star breaking through the living room window at 5 AM as a "special birthday surprise" for Soul.

She saw Patty standing there with a big grin and a thick layer of brownie batter covering herself and the entire kitchen.

She saw herself and Liz peering into the mirror in the bathroom as Liz fumbled with Maka's hair for hours on end.

She saw Crona hunched over on the couch, too embarrassed to accept the baked gifts she and her friends were offering.

She saw Kid rearranging the books on the bookshelf to welcome them both home from the hospital after a particularly rough kishin fight.

She saw Tsubaki sitting on her bed, patting her shoulder; "Trust me, it will be okay," the chain scythe was saying.

And everywhere, she saw Soul. It was truly surreal having him next to her when she could still see his younger self slouching around, using too much hair gel, listening to his Walkman instead of his meister, diligently posting weird artwork all over the walls. She saw him as a young teenager knocking on her door lazily to ask to copy her homework (she slammed it in his face). She saw him come back and knock again, but he was a couple years older and this time it was because she hadn't come out of her room all day. Maka could also see him in his own room, like the time she'd walked in when he was still wrapping her birthday present or the time she caught him drooling while he slept on the schoolbooks he was supposed to be studying.

She saw them together, too - tripping over each other while they moved in for the first time and sitting silently at the kitchen table because they didn't know what to talk about. It made her reach over and grab his hand, which reminded her of other things, like how they used to sit on different couches, then opposite sides of the same couch. And then they slowly started moving closer together until there was no space between them at all.

She saw them sleeping in the same bed for the first time, saw Soul nearly go into a panic when her father knocked unexpectedly on the door the next morning. The memory made her laugh and kiss him on the cheek. He raised an eyebrow, but kissed her back.

She could see Blair sleeping on the floor - lying in whatever pool of sunlight was most handy, attacking Soul with her boobs in human form, making badly-cooked fish with magic on the stove.

"So much happened here," Maka murmured. "It's strange to be leaving. I kinda feel like we just moved in."

"Tch. It's not like we're moving far. We'll still be in Death City." Soul squeezed her hand anyway. "I know what you mean, though."

"I can't believe I'm saying this," Maka began slowly, "but I think I'll miss living with Blair."

"Careful what you wish for," Soul laughed. "We don't know for sure that she isn't gonna follow us."

xxx

70 years later.

Most partnerships of any kind involve a goodbye, and not just to an apartment. It is a rare and extremely merciful case in which both partners live long and then die together.

She stood there, staring at his grave long after everyone else went home. They had a chance to say goodbye, but she still wanted to reflect on their life together.

She was a strong old lady, though, and she knew he would never really leave her. It would be impossible - his music was forever intertwined with the fibers of her soul. In fact, sometimes, if she explored her own soul, she could catch little glimmers of his still living there. She passed the rest of her time as she had always wanted to, as he had always wanted to - helping the next generation learn about how to save the world. She felt proud, knowing that it would be in good hands.

One morning she woke up - was it really waking up? - in the Black Room instead of her own bed.

He was there, and he looked exactly like he had at every moment in his life all at the same time, and it all coalesced into a strangely coherent image.

She glanced at her arms as they wound around him and realized she appeared the same way. They kissed each other "hello," then embraced and stood there for - how long? Minutes? Hours? It could even have been days.

He took her hand and led her past the red curtains; this time, there was no darkness. Instead they stepped out to an island in the sky, held up by a pair of wings. There were bridges on every side.

Maka smiled. She had missed him so badly, being able to really see him, talk to him, rather than just remember.

But she had a question. "You know, people hallucinate sometimes when they die…am I hallucinating you?"

Soul rolled his eyes but smiled back in her direction. He, too, had missed being able to banter with her. "Bookworm. No, you're not just seeing things, okay? Even if you were, it wouldn't matter." When she pouted playfully, he squeezed her hand and offered that roguish grin of his. It still gave her butterflies.

Something - another life, an afterlife, a rebirth, an eternal slumber, something neither they nor anybody else understood yet - waited for them, so together they moved forward toward a bridge (it was the only one that was glowing faintly). As they went, they weren't sure exactly where they were going or what would happen. It seemed fitting to say something.

"I missed you. I love you."

"I love you too."

They were never sure when or if the next goodbye would come, but both knew that if it found them, they would also somehow find another hello.


	4. Chapter 4

**Prequel To Ms. Marie's Tea Shop**

He'd contemplated visiting the tea shop again for reasons he wouldn't let himself think too hard about, but decided to put it off by poking around in the music store first.

He hadn't expected to see her two ashy-blonde pigtails between a pair of headphones, testing out new music. He couldn't see what Maka was listening to yet, but he was curious. Feeling a little too awkward to approach her directly, he wandered into her line of sight to examine some nearby CDs, then glanced at her and waved.

"Soul!" she said in surprise.

"Hey," he said, stepping toward her. "What're you listening to?"

"Ah…nothing," she answered quickly, and immediately ripped the headphones off. Soul glanced at the screen.

"Wha— oh, no. The Pon Pon Dance? Seriously?" he chortled.

"What's wrong with it?" she asked defensively.

"Well, it's not really music, is it? It's the kind of crap that's ruining the industry, as far as I'm concerned."

It was like someone had flipped a switch in the sweet tea shop associate. Maka stared for a moment before arguing back angrily. "Shut up! What a snob!" she fumed. "Jackass. Who says you get to decide what music is, anyway?"

Her comment about snobbery hit Soul much harder than he'd expected, and he relented. "Okay. I know, I know. I shouldn't force my opinions on you. It's just how I was raised."

"As a pompous jerk?!"

"Wha— no! Everyone in my family plays an instrument professionally. We know music."

"You don't know everything." Maka glowered.

Soul had to grin at that, because even though he was certain his family knew more than she could ever hope to about music, he also knew she was ultimately right. In her voice, he heard echoes of arguments he'd had with his own loving but uptight parents.

"Yeah, yeah, all right. What other music do you listen to?" he asked, genuinely curious.

"I can't really describe my taste in music," she said uneasily. He felt bad. She thought she was being judged harshly when in reality, he was only pushing her buttons. "I like a lot of different genres. I like songs you can dance to, and I like rock and stuff. I like, um, showtunes, too. And your piano playing! I don't know anything about the piano or what you usually play but the music you played last week was really good. I think."

"You don't sound too sure."

"Well, someone just told me I have bad taste," she said with a sassy glance his way. Soul rubbed the back of his neck uneasily.

"Ah, look, I'm sorry for being condescending. My parents said that about Nirvana. It really bothered me. Guess I take after them."

Maka smiled, all sunshine now that he'd apologized. "I know you play, but do you listen to the same kinds of things you play? Classical-sounding stuff?"

"Not always." Soul nodded at the screen. "I like a lot of different things. I don't think you can really understand good music until you listen to it in all its forms."

"So you'll listen to any genre if you think it's good?"

"Pretty much," Soul answered. "I honestly don't really enjoy The Pon Pon Dance, but there are dance and pop songs I do like. I could probably like something of any genre if it seemed good."

"Okay so," Maka said mischievously, "How about this one? Don't look at the screen." She put the headphones over his ears, and Soul patiently did not look at the screen.

It didn't take more than three notes before he recognized that she was playing the demo of the finale to his favorite musical since childhood.

"Don't go shouting this to the whole world," Soul said, "but I like this song a lot."

She smiled. "You even like musicals? Really? I thought, you know, cool guys don't like musicals."

"It takes a huge amount of skill and energy to coordinate all these great voices like this, and I appreciate that. Besides," he added, "I like the song's message, about how it's the soul that matters."

* * *

**Flowers (for Odat)**

_Flowers on the table._

_Why are there flowers on the table?_

The apartment is almost silent, although she can hear a little bit of music playing from Soul's room. He had scurried off unusually early today, though she doesn't know why.

She investigates the flowers. They appear to be tiny sunflowers. Maka isn't a florist and doesn't know anything about them, but they are very cute, and they're already in a conveniently-sized little pot in the center of the table. There is a bow on the side of the pot; it's obviously a gift.

She isn't sure exactly what to think. Soul or Blair would have to have left them here, but why the sudden floral inclination? Had they been a gift from someone else to one of them?

* * *

Soul hears the front door open and hopes she doesn't knock on his bedroom door.

He'd thought it would be a great idea at the time. He can remember his mother telling him that tall sunflowers, in flower language, mean _haughtiness_ , but little ones - the dwarf sunflowers - mean _adoration_. He is not sure why he remembers that detail, but it had inspired him to buy the flowers from a street vendor. He would leave them out for Maka, and when she got them, she would be happy.

When he'd arrived home and left them on the table, though, Soul had felt intensely nervous and all of his doubts spilled out. If she knew he got her flowers, she might take it as a confession, and he is afraid of how she might respond.

That's why he's in his present debacle. He doesn't want to give up, but he isn't ready to go out there and face her. He stalls, listening to music to try to calm down and figure out what he will say.

* * *

It has been half an hour since she got home, and dinner is almost ready.

She knocks at the door, and the music stops shortly thereafter.

"Come in," he says gruffly. She opens the door. He's lying on his bed, looking up at the ceiling.

"Dinner will be ready soon. What are the flowers on the table for?" she asks, keeping her voice light, hoping it doesn't sound too nosy.

"Uh, they're just. For you. I grabbed them on the way home."

"O-oh," Maka says softly, cheeks ablaze. "Thank you, Soul."

"Yer'welcome," he mumbles.

She's about to turn around and go back to the kitchen, but she hesitates. "Why'd you do that? What's the occasion, anyway?"

"Nothin'. I just felt like it."

Maka walks into his room, sitting down on the bed next to him. "Ah, come on. There must be some reason why you felt like it. You never do stuff like this."

Soul sighed. "Well, I dunno. Maybe I should. Thought it would make you happy?"

"It does make me happy! But it also makes me confused."

He gives her a look, one full of meaning that she can't quite decipher, but it may be a strange mixture of affection and annoyance. "I like it when you're happy. It's nice to be around. Makes me feel at peace."

She smiles, still blushing, and gives his hand a squeeze. "I'm not sure exactly what you're talking about, but I'll take it. Thank you so much. They're very beautiful, Soul."

She gets up to go finish preparing the food. She's beaming, and Soul turns his head to the side so she can't see the grin on his face.

He doesn't know it, but she's thinking about ways to return the favor.

* * *

**Sushi (for Iasant)**

Maka eyes the menu, trying to figure out how one decides whether a given sushi dish looks appetizing. It's very convenient of them to offer photographs of each dish.

She has to admit it is all very pretty, but she doesn't want to put any of it in her mouth. Sushi, to her, is like a floral arrangement, something to be visually admired - except that it also smells like raw fish and wasabi, so maybe it's nothing like flowers after all. She doesn't understand what Soul would want with it, but she has long since accepted that he loves the stuff, and to him there is an art to its preparation. And its consumption.

She kind of admires the ability to make an art project out of eating and enjoying such weird food. She'd balk at admitting it, but there is a mixture of refinement and - from her perspective - digestive fortitude to his taste.

That's why she's come to this restaurant, known for some of the best sushi in town. There is a sign on the front desk cautioning patrons that while they will serve their food as takeout, sushi is always better eaten fresh. Maka assumes everything will be fine, since Soul should be home when she gets there and it won't take long to get to him.

Usually, the stuff Soul eats is kind of…salmon-colored. She assumes it's salmon. The names of all the dishes are written in Japanese. Sake nigiri, ikura gukan, unagi. Should she get him something she knows he likes to eat often or surprise him with something different?

Maka compromises, choosing some kind of platter that includes three different things. Two of them look a lot like what Soul always eats when he gets sushi. The third looks like nothing she's ever seen before, though it is pretty, and the symbols on the menu tell her it's spicy.

As she walks home with the sushi in one hand and her own dinner in the other, she remembers the flowers on the table and reminds herself that she's not always going to spoil her weapon so much, but this is the most interesting way she can think of to thank him.

* * *

He's in his room again, and she puts the sushi in the fridge before knocking on his door. "Dinner's in the fridge," she says casually. There's the sound of shuffling and he's opening the door before she gets a chance to leave.

"Huh?"

"I said dinner's in the fridge." Maka smiles.

"Cool, but I thought it was my turn?" he says, more a question than anything else, eyes searching her for signs of repressed rage. He glances at his watch. He hasn't missed dinner time, right?

"Ah, I was in the mood for something different myself, so I grabbed you food on the way home, too. You can just cook tomorrow." She moves toward the living room and sits on the couch, grabbing her bag of fast food. He follows her and opens the fridge almost tentatively.

There is silence for a few beats before he breathes, "Maka."

"You're welcome," she tells him. Now she's the one trying to remain cool. Also, the tone of voice he uses to say her name in a discussion about raw fish catches her off-guard in a strange way, although it is not at all unpleasant.

He walks over to her. "Thanks. This is gonna be awesome. What'd I do, though?"

She shrugs and offers one word, unable to control the blush creeping onto her cheeks. "Flowers."

He ruffles her hair. "You didn't have to pay me back for those. I just wanted to get them."

Maka gives him what she hopes is a serious, genuine look. "Knowing that is exactly the kind of thing that makes me want to do something special for you." She takes his hand. "I don't know anything about sushi, though, so I hope it's all right."

Soul grins. "I know a lot about sushi, and the stuff you got me is gonna be perfect." He doesn't say out loud that the main perfection lies not only in the fish, but in the fact that it's a gift from his meister.

* * *

**Memento Mori (for Cecil Murdock)**

There is a sculpture in the geographical center of Death City's civilian district. It's a strange four-part sculpture of a person, not anyone they recognized, as a child, an adult, an elder, and a skeleton, all standing together in a circle. "MEMENTO MORI" is inscribed along the base. When they were kids, Soul had asked "hey bookworm, do you know what that means?"

"It basically means 'remember that you're gonna die,'" Maka had answered. How fitting.

Intellectually, they know their job is the most dangerous one imaginable, but during battle they only ever think about victory and how to attain it. In the past, they've tried worrying - about each other, mostly. They've tried anxiety and they've tried minimizing risks. It didn't work out so well. Not only did they both almost die anyway, but their connection was almost permanently severed by the fear.

Perhaps now they are in a constant state of denial, but Maka would like to believe instead that they're at peace with the reality that death is the constant companion to life. After all, they are among the Grim Reaper's closest friends and confidantes.

More frightening than death of old age is the idea of one partner dying young, but not the other. It's hard to imagine being able to pick up the pieces after going home to a quiet apartment, half-eaten food still in the fridge and unwashed clothes still in the hamper. Who would guzzle milk from the carton in the middle of the night, or leave random books in inconvenient positions between the couch cushions?

But she knows he would be able to carry on. It bothers her when casual friends (never their best friends) say things like "he wouldn't know what to do without you," because he'd started living for himself a long time ago. Besides, he would never insult her memory by squandering the rest of his days in mourning. She could trust him with her life, and if that was taken from her early, she could trust him with his own life, too.

He knows she would be able to press forward. She's brave and stubborn and knows how to break through every kind of darkness. Besides, she's got too much to do, too many people to care for. She would visit his grave all the time and talk to it, probably even argue with it, but she'd keep on living, too.

They're lying on a bed in a sunlit hotel room, both naked after a shower. She's holding each of her hands up against his, asking him to tap out melodies against her own fingers so she might know what it feels like to play decent music. He laughs and says he's pretty sure she won't understand what makes it decent, but he'll try. When she pouts, the blood rushes to her cheeks, warm and alive. Her fingers are warm and alive. His laughter is warm and alive.

Hopefully this life and heat will last for many more decades. But energy is conserved, and even when the last of the warmth leaves their bodies, it will have already moved on to the generation they've saved the world for.

The connection they have is a single string, permanently woven into the great fabric of Things That Really Happened, and death couldn't change that even if it wanted to.

Which it doesn't, anyway.

* * *

**Bubble Bath (for amouseandherrug)**

She hadn't taken a bubble bath in years.

After a long battle in the morning and a relieved lovemaking session in the afternoon, Soul and Maka had decided to take a bath in the unnecessarily luxurious hot tub the hotel offered as part of their room. Well, they had not really mutually decided it - Soul had collapsed on the bed (naked) in a state of exhaustion, but Maka had gotten the water running and filled the tub with bubbles. She'd yanked on his arm until he gave in and allowed her to drag him over.

"Let's take a bath! It's so relaxing!"

"Sleeping's relaxing, too," Soul mumbled, but he grinned at how eagerly she stripped off the thin night shirt she wore and climbed in. She may as well have done a canonball. She pulled at his hand and tugged him forward to join her.

Soul sighed in contentment as the heat of the water and the foam of the bubbles surrounded him. It was fortunate they had already engaged in sex, long, rewarding, and tiring, because as much as he loved getting it on with her there was a kind of bliss to being naked and chaste together. It gave him time to dwell on her beauty (relatively) unblinded by the haze of arousal. She had remained petite since adolescence, and there was a kind of powerful grace to her body - the curve of her hips, her little breasts, the shoulders she held in such a strong and dignified manner - that he could hardly even believe was possible.

Maka sidled up to her weapon right away, and he wrapped her in a soapy embrace. She ran her hands through his hair, which was absurdly thick, kissed him just long enough to count his pointy front teeth with her tongue, and settled with her head against his chest. She could hear his heart. Long gone was the slight arrhythmia from his injury, and the beat was as regular and lazy as his voice when she'd wake him up in the morning. _Everything about him is steadfast_ , she thought as she closed her eyes and ran her fingers over him and thanked herself for making him her partner.

"Psst, turn around. Your knees are jabbing my legs," he whispered in her ear. Maka huffed but obliged, so she had her back to his front. They reclined together against the side of the tub among mounds of soapy bubbles, savoring the goosebumps caused by the hot water and the warmth shared between their bodies.

* * *

**Retail AU (Radio prompt for victoriapyrrhi)**

Maka had to learn to rein in her temper for this job. People could be nasty about the tiniest non-issues imaginable; strangely enough, retail actually required a bit of cunning in order to politely convince customers to behave. It was fortunate that she was also usually quick to forgive.

On this particular morning, a lady had arrived early with a sweater to exchange. Maka called for one of the associates to bring a few different sizes to the front.

"I'll get it," Soul's static voice responded through the walkie-talkie. He took about ten minutes, and the woman was growing increasingly irate with the amount of time she was left standing around. Maka was beginning to wonder if Soul was goofing off again when he appeared, panting, with three different versions of the same sweater.

"Sorry about that wait. Long story," he added to Maka's raised eyebrow. Something involving Star, no doubt.

"You know, ever since this place changed ownership, I've seen it going downhill," the woman huffed. Soul stayed nearby to help organize one of the return racks, and it wasn't long before the woman came back to the counter.

"I think I changed my mind. I'd rather just return this," she said, handing over the sweaters in a jumbled heap.

Maka found the one meant to be returned, and she studied it for a moment before apologizing. "I'm sorry. I can only exchange this or give store credit because the tags are torn off."

"That's ridiculous," the woman gaped. "My sister just bought it for me last week. She was here, in this store."

"I'm really sorry. I know it's ridiculous, but unfortunately I've asked before, and I'm not allowed to do a return without tags or a receipt."

"I returned an item just last month with no tags. Who leaves the tags on? It's crazy."

Maka felt her fingers tighten on the edge of the counter.

"We've never been allowed to return items without tags. That's been policy for quite a while," Soul attempted conversationally. Maka could hear the edge to his voice, though.

"Are you trying to tell me I'm lying?" the woman asked dangerously.

Soul paused. "No. I'm just telling you. We can't give you a cash refund."

"Well, obviously someone did," the woman snapped. "You should be able to just do whatever they did." She glared at Maka. "Your job's not that difficult, you know."

"She can't do it," Soul cut in. "It's not allowed. If someone did a return for you on a tagless item, they made a mistake."

"How do I know she's not making a mistake?" The woman pointed rudely at Maka's face.

"Because she _never does_ ," Soul growled angrily.

"Is there a manager on duty?" the customer asked him. "You're being very disrespectful."

Now it was Maka's turn to cut in. She knew Manager Gorgon, who was in fact somewhere in the store, would not be sympathetic to Soul. "Unfortunately, our manager isn't here right now, but if you want, we have this sheet you can use to fill out an incident report," Maka said brightly. The woman filled it out and stormed off.

"Why'd you do that?" Soul asked, sounding a little hurt. Maka glanced around, then took the paper off the clipboard, ripped it to tiny pieces, and buried it at the bottom of the recycling bin in front of Soul's shocked eyes.

"If you're gonna talk back to the customers," Maka said, eyes twinkling, "make sure they don't hear you."

* * *

**Request (Radio prompt for victoriapyrrhi)**

Maka mentioned once that she had always wanted someone to dedicate a song to her on the radio. Soul scoffed, because that's the cheesiest shit ever, and she must have partly agreed because she got defensive and hit him in the head with a book.

But now, when he was across the country and feeling decidedly alone, it was sounding like a better idea. Just as cheesy as before, but also kind of…nice.

Strictly speaking, he was not alone. He was with his family. It was an important thing to do now and then, visiting them, but he was really not used to being unable to yell to Maka in the next room.

He waited for 11 PM - it would be 8 PM where she was, the time when she would settle in and turn the radio on to Death City's station. He knew their number by heart from the number of times he'd heard it advertised for one contest or another.

* * *

She didn't like being in the apartment without him somewhere fairly nearby, but he needed to go visit family and he'd be back, so she wouldn't complain. She'd just distract herself and try to take advantage of the peace of being alone.

Maka had almost tuned out the radio, relegating the music and commercials to background noise, but an interruption from the enthusiastic voice of the DJ, Death City Drake, dragged her attention away from her book.

"Hey listeners, what's up? Here we have a caller all the way from the East Coast!"

"I— huh? Yeah…" The caller's voice was very familiar.

"Well then, what's your name?"

"Soul," said the caller.

"Well, Soul, what can I do for you tonight?"

"I wanted to request a song."

"And what song is that?" the DJ asked patiently.

"I'd like, uh," Soul paused, and Maka got over her shock enough to giggle as she realized he was having an uncool moment. "How about…Billy Joel? 'She's Got A Way'?"

"You got it, man. Is this a dedication?"

"Yeah," Soul answered gruffly. "For Maka."

"Is there anything you'd like to say to Maka?" It sounded like Death City Drake knew Soul was nervous and was having a bit of fun keeping her partner on the radio; the DJ's amusement was audible.

"I guess just…here you go, nerd."

Maka wasn't sure whether she wanted to kiss the radio, as the closest thing to Soul in the room, or hit it with a book. Meanwhile, Drake chuckled and the song began.

By the end of the first verse, Maka was a brighter red than she'd ever been in her life. By the end of the second, she was already planning the kind of full-body hug and kiss she was going to give him when he walked through the front door.

* * *

**Romance Novel**

After school, Blair could often be found basking in the sun by the window, as she was today. Both partners muttered a quick "hi" to the sleeping cat as they got through the door.

Maka ran to her room to get a head start on homework. Nerd. Soul sighed, glad to be home, and flung himself on the couch.

Something a little bit uncomfortable jabbed him in the butt.

That's when he noticed: on the cushion was a small, thick soft-cover book.

_Ah, Maka left her book lying around._

He noticed that it was one of those. A romance book, one of the sort Maka had accused of being "trashy" a few years ago the first time they'd been in a bookstore together.

The first warning should have been the title - "Sowing the Seed."

 _Heh. Maka actually reads this stuff?_ He flipped through. Usually he never spared a second glance toward any book, but this was a potentially amusing opportunity. Joking about his straight-edged, book-smart partner reading notoriously cheesy smut? Yes, please.

Soul picked a passage somewhere toward the middle. He promptly felt his face heat up as his cheeks began to flush at the things his meister was reading.

 _"We stood facing each other, staring into each other's eyes and breathing hard. I felt his calloused, hot hand come up to caress my trembling back,"_ the passage began. _"He pulled me into his muscular embrace. I could smell his musky cologne as I nuzzled his broad chest, and I couldn't help letting my nervous, curious hands slither all over his body."_

Soul grimaced. _Ew. Why would you use the word "slither" if you're trying to be sexy?_

And yet he kept reading. _"He moved his other thick, strong hand to my chin and lifted my blushing face to his. His lips, wet and sweet with desire, engulfed mine. I let his tongue in as soon as I felt it brush against my lips. I couldn't stop my hands from wandering; they effervesced need and lust all across his skin. He smiled seductively as slowly but surely, I reached down to grab—"_

Oh by Death's mercy, how explicit would this get? Soul skipped a page, skimming for— yep, there it was. He would like to think he was above being so drawn in by something like this, but he needed to know how far it would go. _"I bit my lip to keep from screaming as he thrust his—"_

Soul slammed the book shut, red as a beet, and stuffed it back between the cushions.

Now he was thinking about his partner thinking about…these things, nuzzling chests and French kissing and groping and seduction and private parts and just _sex_. He already knew she did, of course, in the way he knew everyone does. Such are the facts of life. But now _he_ was imagining _her_ reading _this_ particular book. This particular passage. And the reasons why people read books like these in the first place. It wasn't for the intellectual content, that was certain.

For once he was really glad she always disappeared to her room to study, because he was sure these thoughts were causing him some pretty uncool facial expressions right now.

Also, he needed a cold shower.

* * *

**Lachrymal (prompt for Marsh of Sleep)**

He knows she's trying to hold back tears.

She'll be very embarrassed if he mentions it right away, so he just stays next to her on the couch and keeps an eye on the TV. He asks if he can change the channel (she's obviously not paying any attention to it, nose stubbornly buried in a book). She mumbles - trying to disguise the sniffles casually - that it's fine. He puts on something light, just enough to be a distraction if she wants it to be, and tries not to add the weight of his gaze to the pressure on her shoulders.

When she's clutching her book and she hasn't turned the page for five minutes and she's struggling to keep her voice out of her quiet little gasps, Soul goes to her room and grabs the fuzzy blanket she likes so much. When he drapes it gently around her shoulders, Maka sniffs especially loudly, and when he brushes her hand with his fingers so she knows he's there, she gives up all pretense and lets her sobs wrack her body.

He's not really sure whether she'll want to get close now, and he isn't very confident in general about how she feels about his hugs. They haven't done it much.

Yet.

So he puts a hand delicately on her shoulder as he sits close by, squeezing lightly and waiting for her reaction. If she leans away, she needs to be alone for a while.

But it doesn't take more than that for her to lean into him fully and soak the front of his shirt with tears. She's gasping for air and clinging onto him for dear life. Soul gathers Maka up in a bundle, blanket and everything, and rests his chin on her head.

He doesn't have to ask. It's not just one thing she's upset about; it's a piling-up of overwhelming events. He refuses to cry as well right now, but the sight and sound of her tears always hurt him, and he keeps his arms around her not only for Maka's comfort, but for his own. Even as her crying shakes him, her warmth soothes the pain.

This is not a time for talking; it's a time for holding.


	5. Chapter 5

**For GlitterGoat (family story)**

It was a lovely spring day, all of the other kids were there, and Maka leaned down to kiss their son goodbye for the next four hours. But he turned around and raised his snooty little nose into the air.

"I don't want any kisses any more 'cause I wanna be cool like Dad. And cool dudes don't kiss their moms! …In front of people," he added in a hushed whisper.

Soul glanced over at his wife, who was laughing. Before she could make a move, Soul did, sweeping his son off the ground in one playful motion. The toddler's green eyes widened and his sharky white baby teeth flashed as he shrieked in an exaggerated display of mock terror.

"What's so funny?" Soul asked, hanging on to the squirming upside-down child. Maka continued to giggle more mirthfully than she should have over the snowy white hair of their baby daughter, who appeared clueless but pleased all the same.

"Soul, it's just— he sounds exactly like you when we were teenagers. If he grows up to be like this all the time, I'm holding you responsible."

Soul smirked. "Yeah. I know." Then he hefted the little boy up to his own eye level and made stern eye contact. "Listen carefully, kid: kisses from your mom are always cool."

Their son looked uncertain. "But Billy and Mandy and Star said is'not!" He was clearly torn, not sure whether to trust his peers, who he desperately wanted to impress, or his dad, who he knew with absolute certainty to be the expert on 'cool.'

"Tch. Nope. They're wrong. You know what this means, don't you?"

And without warning, Soul held up the mousey-blond toddler to Maka, who leaned forward and peppered his face with loud, embarrassing mommy-kisses.

"Guys, don't look!" he screeched at his little friends through fits of laughter. They wouldn't listen, of course, and looked on in delight, but Soul knew their parents would do the same sometime soon.

* * *

**Lygerastia:** _The condition of one who is only amorous when the lights are out._

It was always in the dark.

It took a long time for either of them to recognize what was going on. They both genuinely liked the dark. Not being able to see made them more aware of their other senses, ones they didn't pay as much attention to in the daylight. The heat of his skin, the taste of her sighs and smell of her hair, the soft nuances in his hushed voice - it all felt more intimate without the distraction of vision.

But there was another side, and that, Maka realized, was that she was afraid to be exposed. The darkness was a sort of cover. Without it, she couldn't relax.

"Soul?" she said. "Have you ever thought of…of leaving the lights on?"

"Yeah, just never really got around to it. Why?"

"I just wanted to know."

Soul sat up, concerned. "There must be a reason. Is everything okay?"

"I think I'm afraid of being seen naked, Soul."

"Is it because of stuff I said when we were twelve?" Soul asked, voice tense.

Maka huffed. "No. Well…I dunno. I don't think so."

"I didn't mean it, you know?"

"Yeah, I know, I know. I think it's just a fear of being seen. Pretty stupid, right? Especially with you…"

"Heh. It is, though I have a confession. I'm also afraid of being seen. 'Cause of the scar."

Maka paused for a moment. "…Yes, we're both stupid," she decided. "After everything, we still have this ridiculous worry."

"It's an ongoing fight, right?" Soul said, pressing his forehead to hers in the dark. "There will always be something to be afraid of. Even ourselves."

"That's true." Maka ran a hand through his hair, another one up his chest along his scar. "I guess we'll just have to face up to it." And she reached over to switch the lamp on.

* * *

**Tarantism:** _The urge to overcome melancholy by dancing._

They couldn't hide their surprise when Kid stood in front of the crowd for the second time, face drawn and serious. No one was expecting another speech. The first one had already been hard enough. Liz and Patty stood to the side, just as unsure of what was going on as everyone else.

And then he smiled sadly. "I don't believe anyone could deny that, ironically, my father was the life of any party."

Maka almost burst into tears again.

"And as much as we all need this time to mourn, Father would want there to be a light at the end of the tunnel. This is Death City, after all. I don't think all this sadness would suit him if it wasn't balanced out. So…" Kid exhaled a breath. "Anyone who is so inclined can meet at Gallows Manor tonight. There will be a formal dance, a sort of going-away party for him as well as a gala in honor of the future I know my father wants for this world."

Silence.

"He's throwing a party for his father's death?" Black Star whispered disbelievingly. Maka stepped on his foot.

"Shut up. You don't get it." She did get it.

"I'm aiming for this to be an upbeat, hopeful event, but do remember who it's for, so please dress respectfully," Kid continued. "Thank you very much, everyone."

xxxxx

Soul and Maka decided to go, in order to support Kid. They weren't really in the mood for a party, but it felt self-indulgent to stay at home and marinate in sadness. Soul did not make a fuss about wearing the same formal outfit he had worn to the funeral.

When they arrived, the crowd was far smaller than it had been in the middle of the city. They recognized the band as the former Lord Death's favorite choice for holidays and celebrations the whole year round.

The main problem was that despite the quality of the music, no one was dancing. Everyone stood by the refreshment tables, though Kid was already surrounded by several of their friends including Kim, Liz, and Kirikou. Soul wordlessly gestured for Maka to follow him over, where they chatted with Kid and the others for a little while.

But eventually, the group scattered as Kid went to talk with other guests. Some people - couples, mostly - began awkwardly dancing, obviously conscious of being the first ones to try.

"I don't know what to do," Maka said sadly.

"Work through it, I guess. What else can we do? The last week has been a real rollercoaster." Soul gave her a soft, somber smile, knowing that while he'd felt the sadness, Kid and Maka had each been through the worst pain with the loss of Lord Death and the bittersweet fate of Crona.

At his words, something he hadn't seen at work clicked in her mind, and she grabbed his hand. "Come on. Let's go."

"Huh?"

"Everything's so depressing. I can't stand it anymore." Maka pulled him forward.

"I'm not really following," Soul said nervously, even as he did follow her toward the dance floor. "Are you finally losing it?"

"No. I just need to get all this sadness out. Dance with me. Please," she added, looking back into his eyes. He didn't resist (because resistance was the more painful option) and just hoped they would blend in with the crowd.

The band increased the music's pace and Maka obviously had no idea what she was doing, but she grabbed his hands and started moving with his arms in a kind of jumpy, back-and-forth motion.

"You're really bad at this," Soul said flatly.

"So what? You're not supposed to worry about being good at dancing." She pouted. "At least I'm trying. Your arms are like floppy noodles."

Soul took that as a challenge. "Fine. I have to show you how it's done, obviously." The truth of the matter was that he wasn't sure what he was doing either, but he swore he was going to prevent her from stepping on his feet.

They settled into a rhythm, and he caught her eyes when she giggled at him.

"You look ridiculous. You're much better at slow dancing," she panted.

"Look who's talking. You're jumping around like popcorn," Soul teased.

All the discomfort of dancing in his fancy clothes and getting stepped on was worth it, though. That bright green vivacious look was coming back into her eyes, and he knew she was starting to really believe everything would be all right. When the band slowed down, he pulled her in close to feel her warmth; she rested her head on his chest and sighed into him.

"Hey. Do you think Kid is finally going to loosen up a little?" Maka murmured.

Soul glanced curiously toward where the new god of death stood. Liz and Patty where doing their best to drag him toward the dance floor, and he was attempting to refuse in the most dignified manner possible, saying things like "Elizabeth. Patricia. Let's leave the dancing to the guests, shall we?"

"I really don't think so," he chuckled into her ashy blonde hair.

* * *

**Petrichor:** _the smell of dry rain on the ground._

It was their first mission as a group in over a year, and Maka was overjoyed to see everyone working together again. The only one who wasn't there was Kid, but he was just a mirror-call away (and she and Soul saw him more often than many of the others, anyway).

It had taken a lot of…diplomatic negotiating, but it had finally been agreed between DWMA and the witches that this particular coven needed to be put in its place. The group had been sent to California with a tent and camping supplies per pair (or team, in the case of Kirikou) in order to lie in wait for the problematic witches.

Now was bedtime, though, and all the tents were organized around a recently-extinguished campfire. The low rumble of thunder in the distance promised some much-needed rain, while the sounds of meisters and weapons shuffling around to get ready for sleep (and arguing over trivial things, in some cases) were quieting.

There was only one problem: Maka was too geared up to sleep. She growled in frustration and heard Soul mumble, "'S'amatter?"

"Can't sleep."

"Shouldn't have had five cups of coffee."

"Ah, people kept offering them and I didn't want to say no."

He chuckled from the other side of the tent. The first few drops of rain pat-patted down above them.

"Not funny, Soul. I'm so tired but I can't sleep."

"Sorry." He yawned and snuggled further into his sleeping bag, which made her extremely envious.

"Hey, don't leave me here awake," she complained. "Talk to me."

"What am I supposed to do, tell you a bedtime story?" he grumbled. "I'm tired."

Maka knew well not to suggest any gossip, since any of the possible discussion topics would be sleeping nearby, so she just huffed angrily.

"Don't you have a book or something?" he asked.

"No. I left it home so it wouldn't get damaged. There's no way to read it now, anyway, it's too dark."

Silence fell for a few minutes, and Maka assumed Soul had fallen asleep, which is why she was so surprised when he said, "Psst. Maka." Outside, the rain had intensified.

"Hmm?"

"I uh. Would it help for you to be, um, over here?"

"What do you m—? Oh." Maka paused and considered what he meant before the realization hit her.

"Yeah. It's fine. If you want." She heard him shuffle a bit.

She awkwardly made her way over to his side, where he'd pulled back the cover of the sleeping bag for her, and fell sideways next to him so they were just barely touching. He gently set his hand on her shoulder, which she took as an invitation to snuggle closer.

"You're warm," she breathed, heart pounding, as he wrapped his arms around her. The air smelled like dry dirt and rain, and the flannel of the sleeping bag smelled like clean laundry.

"Well, yeah, I've been curled up under here for half an hour," Soul teased. "Are you gonna relax and sleep or what?"

Maka was honestly not sure if she would with all this sudden excitement, but she _could_ stay still and quiet for the sake of hanging onto this moment - him, the smell and sound of the rain, being able to sense healthy, happy souls all around. "You go to sleep, Soul."

He pulled her in so she rested her face in the crook of his neck. "It's about damn time," he mumbled, closing his eyes and running his fingers through her hair.

"Get a room already," said Black Star's voice from next door, half-irate and half-amused. He was followed by Tsubaki trying not to laugh as she shushed him.

* * *

**Sphallolalia:** _flirtatious talk that leads nowhere._

Soul had never been a flirt. But she was determined to get him to respond to her. She was great at making conversation; everyone said so, and now - three days before Valentine's Day - she was feeling particularly amorous. It would be a good time.

She caught him on his way out of the grocery store, carrying a small bag to his motorcycle.

"Hey, look at you! The Last Death Scythe!" she said pleasantly, a few steps behind.

"That's my name," he offered amicably, turning around to nod.

"Nice to meet you. I'm Amanda. I just wanted to say that bike is really cool."

"Ah, thanks." Soul grinned and patted the handlebars. "I've had it for a pretty long time. Don't use it as much as I used to, but it always sets me free so I hang onto it."

"Does Maka like it?" Amanda asked curiously, prodding for more information. The expression on his face at that was not as readable as she would have liked.

"Yeah, she does. When we have to go anywhere far we just fly, but sometimes we'll use the bike around town for fun. It's less work, you know?"

He was about to climb on when Amanda sighed enviously. "Man, I wish I had a weapon who could do stuff like that. Flying seems like the most amazing thing in the world. I can't believe you can do that."

Soul shrugged. "Maka's the one with the Grigori soul, so she kinda powers the flight. We couldn't do it if she was different."

"My weapon isn't serious like you. She doesn't even care about training," Amanda said disapprovingly. "I don't think we're going to be partners much longer, 'cause I can't stand it."

"That's too bad. I hope you both find a good partner," Soul said. "Now unfortunately, I gotta get going. It's been nice to m—"

"Hang on," she interrupted. "Could you just take me for a quick ride? I've never been on a motorcycle but it looks really fun."

Soul sighed. "I'm sorry, I really can't."

"You're not interested in me at all, huh," she said sadly, dropping all pretense.

He smiled knowingly. "Nothing personal. I've got something on my mind, is all."

It was only then that she noticed the contents of the little grocery bag: Valentine goodies.

"I'm sure you'll meet lots of great people, you look pretty new around here," Soul continued. "Trust me, there are awesome people all over this city. That's one of the most important things I've ever learned."

Amanda smiled and nodded. "Thanks."

* * *

**Strikhedonia:** _The pleasure of being able to say "to hell with it."_

"I'm going out for a ride."

"Don't we have an important meeting at eight tomorrow morning? It's midnight now," Maka said, arching an eyebrow.

"Ah, hell with it," Soul said. "If we don't decide what to do with our time, everyone else will decide for us." He grabbed his keys from kitchen table. "You're welcome to come if you want. Otherwise, I'll be back later so don't wait up."

Maka hesitated, but only for a moment, and before the door swung shut behind him, she had run after him.

"I'm feeling restless. Not really in the mood to just go to sleep."

They made their way down to the street, where the orange motorcycle waited in front of the apartment building. It had needed repairs a few times over the years but remained reliable and comfortable. Maka had been enthusiastic about trying it out for the first time, yet she hadn't predicted how much time they would spend on it.

"I'll show you my usual route," Soul explained.

He drove them out from the city lights into the desert. No one spoke for most of the time, so they fell into an easy, warm kind of quiet, the only sounds the engine and the chill desert air whipping past. Maka couldn't make up her mind between resting her head against Soul's back (eyes closed to focus on the feel of him in her arms and the sensation of the outside air) and peering all around at the sky's starry dome over the expanse of the desert. She did a fair amount of both.

Maka had no clue how much time passed. Overhead, the moon - covered in a sphere of black - emitted the slightest, eeriest halo of purple light. Soul felt Maka sigh deeply and didn't need to ask why. Away from Death City, the motorcycle headlights were all that lit their path. They didn't interfere too much with the view of the sky.

Soul slouched back a little into Maka's hold. He loved coming out to the desert alone, but he had a feeling he wouldn't feel the pull to go back home as soon as usual with Maka here.

The time came, though, to turn around. He glanced at his watch. It was about 1:30 AM, and they were due at DWMA in six and a half hours. He drove by the steps to the school on the way home when Maka tapped on his shoulder.

"Let's go sit at the top. It's a great view," she said. Hearing her words spoken after so much time spent in silence was odd in a way he could welcome.

They climbed all the way up, each remembering the years spent here before, and surveyed the city's domain. Almost all the apartment windows were dark, although a few here and there were lit, and Maka had to wonder idly if the people inside were night owls. Perhaps they were working late into the night, having trouble with insomnia, or sleeping with a light on.

They had settled very close to each other, hips just touching, and were soon leaning heavily on one another. Maka leaned in while Soul wrapped his arm around her shoulders.

"I don't care if you don't," Soul whispered, "but it's two in the morning."

"Whatever," Maka answered. "We don't have to be up until seven. Let's stay a while longer."

* * *

**Mamihlapinatapei:** _The look between two people in which each loves the other but is too afraid to make the first move._

"And now, I'm not sure this is really the most critical of discussions because you guys seem to work this out yourselves," Stein droned, taking a drag from his cigarette, "but I'm being asked to address a serious issue. That issue is weapon and meister romantic relationships."

The atmosphere in Class Crescent Moon immediately became tense, the air stifling. Maka knew it was because some people were fascinated and gossipy, while others were feeling more personally affected by the conversation at hand.

"Weapons and meisters very commonly fall in love. Or lust. Have crushes. It only makes sense, when your souls are in such close contact with each other and you're teens and young adults full of hormones and looking for intimacy."

Maka heard Soul huff a little next to her, probably because the word "intimacy" spoken in Stein's voice sounded kind of bizarre.

"Sometimes, these feelings are mutual, and sometimes, they are not. There is no official ban on weapons and meisters dating. However, it is our responsibility to caution you that romance is an extremely risky test of your partnership. It is extremely common for a failed dating relationship to end a partnership forever."

All around the room, some students glanced at each other while others avoided eye contact altogether. Maka stared at her desk.

"My point is, don't make any hasty decisions," Stein said. "You all are young, with your whole lives ahead of you. If you think you might be in love with your partner, please be patient." He smiled in a fatherly, encouraging way, far from the derangement he usually showed.

Maka risked a glance at Soul, who she had expected to be asleep on his desk.

He wasn't. She was met with his eyes. It was surprising, but she was too curious to look away, and for the first time actually watched his face redden. Maka could also feel her eyes widening and her heart quicken when he didn't look away either.

"I'm not an expert on this, but my colleagues have informed me that if people are really compatible, they will keep finding ways to come back together, so there is really no rush. I'm not here to crush your hopes, just trying to keep you responsible."

Soul offered a shaky little grin, sincere but anxious, and Maka smiled back in response. She understood. All the tension she'd thought had been in the room had really been on her shoulders, and it lifted.

He was being patient.

"Also," Stein continued, "the current Death Scythe would like me to relay the message that no one should date before the age of 30."

Soul winked cheekily at Maka, who buried her face in her hands, half out of embarrassment and half out of mirth.


	6. Chapter 6

**Pokemon AU**

"So, how about it?" Maka grinned, reaching to her belt and holding a Cherish Ball out toward the sketchy white-haired stranger. "My starter against yours."

He laughed. "You're on, pigtails."

Maka stopped mid-throw. "Wow. That's completely unprofessional. Are you even a real Trainer?"

"Of course I am," he said, oddly affronted for someone who had just commented rudely on a challenger's appearance.

"Guess it doesn't matter, since we're gonna beat you anyway," she continued casually, and tossed the ball handily into the air. "Togekiss, you know what to do!" Togekiss - her best friend since childhood, an angelic, birdlike sort of creature with white plumage - popped out in a flurry of wings and feathers, and she caught her opponent's eyes widening.

"That's a pretty neat Pokemon, I admit. I wouldn't be so sure about beating us though, right, Absol?" he answered with a wide, toothy grin. He threw what appeared to be a Luxury Ball onto the battlefield, and a canid-like white creature with red eyes and a huge scythe on its head leapt forth, growling determinedly back to its Trainer.

She had to admire it. It was quite graceful - and, by appearances, quite dangerous.

"Togekiss. Quick! Dazzling Gleam!"

She caught the stranger's face break into a huge smirk at the name of her attack (this was no surprise, as many people - especially boys unfamiliar with the Fairy type - reacted that way). It didn't take him long to move on, though, because at the same time he took hold of something on his wrist and said, "Mega evolve. And get it in one hit with a Shadow Claw."

Maka had never seen something like this before. In the midst of battle, even as it dodged around Togekiss's attack, it grew huge, beautiful wings on its back and littler ones on its feet. It grew in size and moved quicker, even more daintily.

But Togekiss dodged its enormous claws, which were giving off an ominous shadow aura.

"Awesome job!" she cried, ecstatic that its attack had also missed and determined not to be distracted by the strange transformation. "Just finish it off with a Hyper Beam now!" She didn't want this thing hanging around any longer than it had to. At least, not while it was her opponent.

"Yeah, right," the white-haired Trainer said, though there was a desperate edge to his voice. "Giga Impact it in midair!"

Both Pokemon called out to their Trainers. Togekiss was summoning all of its energy, and Absol was charging forward at an alarming speed. There was a bright ray of light, and Maka and her opponent were both blinded for several seconds.

When their vision cleared, there were two Pokemon collapsed in a heap on the ground.

"Kkkkkkeeehhhhhh," Togekiss groaned. Absol just grumbled under its breath. Maka noticed that its wings had gone. Both Trainers ran to where the Pokemon were lying.

"Ah. Looks like a draw," said the other trainer, voice considerably lighter than she was expecting. He knelt down and scratched Absol on the head; it leaned cheerfully into his hand. Meanwhile, Maka stroked the feathers on Togekiss's head. It made a gentle cooing sound.

"Good fight," he muttered, offering his hand, which was pleasant to her grip. "My name's Soul. What's yours?"

"I'm Maka," she answered. "Good fight to you, too. I've never seen a Pokemon do that before in the middle of battle."

"What, evolve? Ah, I guess that is a pretty new thing. Where are you from?"

"Death City."

Soul's eyes widened again. "I have never heard of that. You're from far away then, aren't you?"

"Very far," Maka agreed. "Where are you from?"

"Lumiose. But I've been traveling for six years."

* * *

They spent the rest of the evening chattering about their travels, and before they knew it, night had fallen. They had met hundreds, perhaps thousands of people on their respective journeys, but never had they met anyone who was so much fun to converse with.

Both Pokemon were back to normal now, and romped around close by. At one point, Maka reached out and petted Absol, who stood stock still and stared unnervingly into her eyes.

Soul laughed. "Look, he likes you."

"Doesn't really seem like it," Maka said edgily, though she continued.

"Nah, he has trouble trusting strangers. Usually won't let anyone touch him at all except for me."

"Togekiss is practically the opposite," Maka said, not entirely sure where she was going with this.

"Oh?" Soul pat the Pokemon under her feathery chin. She chirruped happily and spread her wings out.

"Usually only does that for me, though," Maka smiled. "I guess she likes you, too. Want to meet the rest of my team?"

* * *

**Wedding Cake (prompt from Red)**

It's not going to be what you'd call a… _traditional_ wedding, but it is going to be quite a party, and there is a lot to plan. She's been asking about every detail. For days.

The truth of the matter is, it's hard to answer because he doesn't really care about most of it. It's not that he doesn't care that it's _happening_ , or that he doesn't want it to be _nice_ , but really he's already got all he needs out of the equation. No matter what they decide on, he can't imagine being anything less than ecstatic by the end of the night.

So he tries, but he can't keep some frustration from creeping into his voice after she neuroses, for the billionth time, whether chocolate or vanilla or red velvet cake is a better idea, and what shape it should be, and which decorations should go on it - cheesy little statues at the top? If so, generic or custom-made? Should there be flowers on it, or should it be kept simple? Or perhaps a soul theme would be more interesting. The musical theme is enticing as well…

"Would you pay attention?" Maka snaps.

"What?!"

"I need your help deciding this! It's important!"

Soul shrugs. "I don't think it's that big a deal. Honestly. You can pick. Do what you want."

"But don't you have any strong preferences? It doesn't seem like you're really thinking about it and you're letting me do all the work. Don't you care at all?"

Soul knows what those last few words mean, and once upon a time he would have snorted and gone to his room, angry at her for doubting him, but he knows better now. (There's also the fact that they share a room.)

"Yeah, obviously," he says, fixing her with what he hopes is a piercing gaze. "I care a lot. But I'm already getting everything I want."

"Huh?" Maka looks confused.

"You're marrying me, idiot."

"…Oh." Maka pauses and flushes, obviously wanting to come back with something but equally _not_ wanting to shut down such a blunt compliment.

"Just don't do something crazy like ask Excalibur to officiate and I swear I'll be happy."

"But," Maka pouts, and he struggles not to grin because when she pouts she looks just like she did when she was 13, and 17, and 21, and everything she's ever been because that pout never changes, "That's not fair. I feel the same way. But someone has to plan and I really want this to be perfect for you, too." She actually looks a little sad now.

"Maka, listen," Soul says, taking her chin and staring into her eyes. "You know I've never been a party person. It's not that I don't want one," he adds hastily, "it's just that it's hard for me to see the point in worrying so much about all these details. I feel like we should be having fun with the whole thing, you know?"

She sighs. "Yeah. I get it. I just…I'm excited, you know? And I want you to be."

He nods. "I understand. But I'm more interested in seeing you get your way than picking out all the details myself." He offers her a cheesy grin.

She accepts that and smiles back, then looks at the catalogue on the table next to her, and he can tell she's still struggling with a decision.

"If I were choosing on my own, I'd pick the red velvet musical theme layer cake with black and white frosting. And no figures," he says in a rush. "But I don't want you to think you have to—"

Maka lunges forward to kiss him. Not many party-planning decisions get made within the next few hours, but a lot of premarital fucking does take place.

* * *

**Christmas Warmth (prompt from Foxi)**

She always wakes up at 4 AM on Christmas. It's a habit she picked up at age 3 and hasn't broken since, even though she's long since stopped waiting for Santa Claus.

Maka glances at her sleeping partner. Soul, meanwhile, never drags himself out of bed before 6 AM on Christmas, the lazy ass. She smiles fondly both at the sight of his messy bedhead hair and the knowledge that he's wearing his dorky green and white Christmas boxers.

…With mistletoe patterns all over them. He says he "didn't think of it that way" until she mentioned the implications.

She climbs out of bed and goes to her own room, digging through the closet for Soul's Christmas gift. This year she's giving him tickets to a concert (technically, he could probably get in just by throwing his title around, but she's proud of him because he refuses to do that). She's also thrown a bunch of smaller gifts into a stocking, favorite candies and music paraphernalia mostly. She brings the little ticket box and the stocking out to the living room to wait for him - as she always does - and turns on the tree lights.

Maka sits and folds her legs up on the couch across from the tree, which lights up the otherwise-dark room in a multicolored blaze. She reminisces about Christmases past, and looks at all the ornaments. There are some that they'd bought their first year to begin with decorating, but over time many others have accumulated with stories behind them.

"Hey Maka," a familiar voice says, and he's standing at the living room threshold, holding a pair of gifts. One box is small and rectangular, much like the box she used for his tickets; the other a large cube. He's got a small blanket draped around his shoulders.

"You're early," she grins as he shuffles over, and glances at the clock. 4:35. "You never get up with me."

"That's because—" Soul puts the two packages down next to hers. "You're insane."

"Well, you're here now, so who's the insane one again?"

"Both of us," he answers with both affection and resignation. He plops down next to her on the couch, still radiating body heat from being in his bed. "You're freezing," he adds upon leaning over, feeling her feet and hands. Desert nights can be very chilly.

"I don't feel cold," Maka says innocently, but mostly out of habit, because she has a problem admitting that she's cold.

"Yeah, right." He points at her toes, which rest vulnerably in the open on the couch. "See? These are probably gonna fall off." Instead of grabbing his hand, in one swift motion, she grasps the blanket to use as leverage to drag him closer so their noses are touching.

"Either shut up or help me warm up," she murmurs. He sticks his tongue out and blows a raspberry in her face, but then complies by wrapping her in his arms and draping the blanket around both of them.

"I was getting there," he complains into her ruffled hair, a delayed comeback before kissing the crown of her head.

"I know," she answers, leaning in to kiss his neck. He smells like clean laundry, shampoo, and Soul. From under his chin she's able to peek out at the multicolored lights; he gently plays with her hair, having learned long ago how to not pull it painfully. Many things _have_ changed since Maka was three years old, and one of them is the fact that even though there are presents to be unwrapped, right now she's willing to take her sweet time.

She pulls him toward her so their positions reverse somewhat. She's lying on her back and he's lying with his head on her chest, and it's Maka's turn to wrap her arms around his shoulders. She runs her fingers through his ridiculously thick, snowy hair.

"You can be a weapon _and_ a blanket," she observes.

"Gotta protec' th' meister from cold, right," he slurs sleepily. She should have known he wouldn't be able to stay awake, but she'll gladly fall asleep here, too. She pulls him close toward her heart, burying her face in his hair. They'll open gifts at dawn.

* * *

**Christmas Cookies**

He and Maka sort of have this covert competition going to see who can make the most cookies the best. Soul has always sucked at cooking, and he used to suck at baking as well, but over the years his meister has taught him a thing or two and there are a few recipes he's really good at. He's discovered some "accidental" variations in the Russian Teacakes and the chocolate chip cookies in particular, and now on Christmas Eve when she traditionally bakes, he's there with her, experimenting with the same kind of gusto Stein has (except Soul's experiments are less horrifying and more tasty).

Also, apparently, he has a thing for seeing her in his apron. He silently chooses to surrender to her again this year, realizing that at this rate he'll never cover as many cookie sheets as she, and instead walks up behind her, wrapping his arms around her midsection.

Everyone glorifies Christmas during childhood, but as a kid he couldn't have done this. He leans his chin on Maka's shoulder and presses his hips to her rear.

She tilts her head to nuzzle him a bit. She also brings the mixing spoon up to dab a generous blob of cookie batter on his nose.

"Hey! What was that for?!" His eyes cross as he tries, with little success, to inspect his own face.

"Distracting me," she answers casually.

"That's my job."

"Really? You're the Last Death Scythe and your best description of your job is 'distracting Maka'?"

"Pretty much. Someone has to keep you from overworking yourself." There's a short pause while he schemes. Then he headbutts her in an effort to smear cookie batter on her cheek, but she's ready and ducks out of the way.

"So fast!" Soul catches himself saying.

"What did you think?" Maka flirts, now more to his side. "I'm a meister. That's _my_ job." He doesn't get a chance to respond before she leans forward and daintily licks the tip of his nose.

"You're gross," he says. He'd feel strange mentioning that Maka's tongue _anywhere_ on him is a little exciting, but in retrospect, she probably knows this already.

She grins cheekily and does it again while he pretends to scrunch up his face in disgust. "You love it."

Soul grabs her quickly, as if to catch her by surprise - his reflexes probably aren't as great as hers, but she still squeak-laughs - and kisses her. Thoroughly. Maka spends a full five minutes mussing up his hair, giggling against his lips, and generally making out with him before the oven beeps and she gently bops him on the head to remind him there are more cookies to bake.


	7. SoulxMaka Week 2014

**Day 1: Roommates**

The apartment may have been theirs, but his room was definitely his, and her room was definitely hers. There was an intimacy to being in each one, such that for years they barely went in each other's rooms. Sure, one would occasionally barge in on the other during moments of impatience, but they never hung out in each other's bedrooms. Their bedrooms were like apartments within the apartment, private places where uninvited others might be considered intruders (including Blair in human form, not that she cared).

Bedrooms are where sleeping happens. And undressing, concentrating, fantasizing, and crying, all of those vulnerable states. Living together at all was intimate but there was still a degree of separation by virtue of the fact that they had separate bedrooms. While referring to each room as "mysterious" may have been melodramatic, it was also somewhere close to the truth.

One day, Maka was feeling like absolute crap, completely exhausted despite a full night's sleep, with a wickedly sour stomach and chills. It was a day that should have been for relaxing, a sunny Sunday, and she usually would have been out of bed by eight. At noon she was still in bed and heard a knock on her door.

"Uh. Maka?" came Soul's muffled voice. "Are you okay?" He had probably just woken up and been surprised not to see her around.

"Not feeling good, but okay," she croaked.

Soul hesitated, and she thought maybe he had stepped away, but then he asked, "Can I come in?"

"Ehhh, you might get sick, but sure," Maka said, glancing around to make sure the room was clean enough.

She heard the doorknob move, but he didn't come in. "It's locked," he said.

"Hold on," she said, irrationally exasperated with herself for locking it last night.

"Just take your time. I'll be back." She did hear him step away this time, and Maka wondered what was the point of that exchange. She dragged herself upright, sending a momentary ache through her head, and slumped to the door to unlock it before returning to bed. She had almost fallen asleep when she heard the door open.

"Crackers and tea," Soul whispered from the nightstand.

Maka cracked an eye open and murmured, "Thanks, Soul."

"I could hang out for a while, if you want," he said. His headphones were still halfway on, mini tape player sticking out of his pocket. "Not that I'm trying to invite myself," he added quickly.

"I don't know. I have a stomach ache, maybe a fever too. Wouldn't want you to catch it if it's a virus."

Soul shrugged. "I'm not worried. I'll be fine."

"I'm gonna kick your ass if you get sick and we have to miss a mission."

"All right then, I'll bet I won't get sick and you can kick my ass if I do."

Maka grinned through the stomach ache and sat up slowly, bunching the blankets all around herself. She reached hesitantly for a single cracker. "If you really want to stay, then I'd be happy for the company."

Soul plopped down on the bed next to her and though he didn't say very much while she had a few sips of chamomile tea and ate some crackers, he left his headphones off, which she knew meant he was being polite. He only put them on when she picked up a book and started to read. The background noise created by the slight sound of his music was soothing, and having him there, even with his eyes shut, was the ultimate comfort.

"I'm gonna try to sleep the rest of this off," she said after a while. She leaned down to put the book away. "You don't have to stick around for that."

There was no response. Maka glanced up, frowning impatiently, but her expression softened upon realizing he'd fallen asleep leaning back against her wall. His breaths were slow and deep and the music hadn't stopped yet.

Well, she wasn't about to kick him out if he was so comfortable. She found a way to put a blanket over him and arranged herself at his side, doing her best not to jostle the mattress too much and wake him up. This, combined with the soft warmth of the bed, was a wonderful distraction from her belly ache.

* * *

He awoke with absolutely no clue what time it was, though if his progress through the tape was any indication at least an hour had passed. Soul was rarely embarrassed about his ability to sleep at nearly any time in any place, but because Maka's room felt like such a personal space he wasn't sure that had been acceptable.

He needn't have worried. Maka - curled up beside him, definitely arranged so she could face him - was fast asleep, breathing peacefully and smiling mysteriously. The blanket the adorable little dweeb had put over him felt like a warm welcome.

* * *

**Day 2: Nosebleed**

"Soul?"

He was resting his head on his arms, hiding his face from view. "Yeah?" he asked.

"Are…are you avoiding me?"

Despite all his efforts, his head snapped up and his gaze found her eyes. She was bent forward a little so she could be closer to his level at the picnic table. Oh gods, just concentrate on her eyes…

"What?! No!" he practically shouted.

"You haven't even looked at me for the entire trip, much less talked to me," she said sadly, giving him the puppy eyes. It wasn't intentional, though. She was just hurt and that hurt him.

How could he explain that looking at her in a swimsuit was going to give him a nosebleed without giving away the fact that he was having Naughty Thoughts, though? Especially that ridiculously sexy red and black skirt bikini! As it was, he had to stare very intently at her face to avoid looking elsewhere.

"I uh. Have no idea what you're talking about. You're making shit up, Maka, I promise."

Maka straightened up and put her hands on her hips, which he did his best not to look at as he turned his eyes back to the table. "Fine then. I guess we're just going to spend all this time on this great beach in Hawaii ignoring each other, Soul."

"I'm not ignoring you."

"Obviously, you are. I thought this was going to be a nice vacation, but all of a sudden you're all—"

"Just - look, how about you go put…" He couldn't tell her what to do, right? That would cause even more problems. "That swimsuit is very revealing," he finished intelligently.

"My swimsuit?" she asked, cocking her head to the side. Against his better judgment, Soul looked up and saw her studying the skimpy fabric covering very little of her own body. She snapped the thick strap of her bikini bottom absentmindedly (it made a satisfying noise as it returned to its place on her sexy, sexy hips). "Don't change the subject," she said, looking back to him. "Anyway, it's not any more revealing than anyone else's…"

What? Why was she staring at his face like that?

Uh oh.

"Soul, your nose is bleeding— oh." Maka blushed bright red and covered her mouth, eyes wide.

He was preparing himself for some kind of verbal explosion of insults when she moved her hand out of the way so she could grin smugly at him. Her coquettish giggle and teasingly-raised eyebrow, he found, were only enhanced by the blush she still wore. None of the above helped his nasal situation.

* * *

**Day 3: Insanity**

Soul woke up mid-scream, falling (as far as he knew) back onto his mattress. He didn't know exactly what his nightmare had been. Given the intense sick still churning in his stomach, he was absolutely certain he didn't want to know. All he could remember were brief flashes - the Little Demon, who really was more a slightly-sinister pain in the ass than terrifying, but then - Maka - and her blood.

Well, that churning wasn't going to resolve itself. Soul threw his blankets off and made a mad dash for the bathroom, where he barely made it to the toilet before puking so hard he expected to see his own soul fall out eventually.

But it didn't.

Somewhere in his haze it fully hit him that the dream had not been a reality and he was flooded with relief. He flushed and stared mindlessly at the clean water filling up the bowl, not sure he was ready to leave. That shitty Black Blood was doing its best to make his life a living hell. Targeting loved ones would of course be its weapon of choice; how utterly disturbing that this was not his first and would certainly not be his last nightmare of that nature. He clutched at his scar as an intense wave of anxiety and anger rolled through him, triggering some dry heaves.

"Soul?" Maka asked, voice wavering, from the doorway.

"Uh, I'm fine. Just some indigestion. Don't worry about it…go back to bed." He was rather proud of how casually he could handwave while leaning over a toilet bowl.

He heard her pad away and couldn't help feeling a bit hurt that she'd left so quickly. She returned soon, though, with a blanket, which she draped over him. It was the same one he'd once woken up with when he'd foolishly fallen asleep on her bed (though it had been such a sweet experience in the end; he could never regret it). She put another on the floor and sat down wordlessly.

Apparently she wasn't going to leave him alone after all. He let her stay, at once thankful for her presence and embarrassed by his own predicament. He felt guilty about putting her through this, too, but had no idea how to articulate that properly. So when he was more certain of his control over his own stomach, he muttered into the toilet bowl about something tangentially related.

"'A sound soul dwells within a sound mind and a sound body,' huh? What about people who can never have those things? Like Sid. He's a zombie. That can't be the same as having a sound body. Is he just fucked forever? Am I fucked?" It wouldn't be necessary to mention the Black Blood. She would know.

"Soul," Maka said, putting her hand gingerly on his back. "That's not what it means."

"I don't know how else to interpret it."

"It means…you have to take care of yourself."

"How do you figure?"

"Well, the idea is that the body, the mind, and the soul are all connected. If you damage one, you damage the others. They never said you can't recover from the damage. They're just telling you not to ignore your own physical, mental, or spiritual health."

"Maka. In case you hadn't noticed, I'm not sure I'm ever going to have an entirely healthy soul. Or mind. Or body. Or whatever it is this Black Blood is affecting more."

Maka moved her hand up to squeeze his shoulder, and he knew she was serious, because she swore. "Bullshit. We'll work on it together."

"I know," he said quietly. And then he added, almost inaudibly, "It's not fair to you, though."

She squeezed his shoulder tighter and he almost thought she was going to try to forcibly spin him around to face her. She didn't, only spoke in a low, quivering voice they both knew was her 'most serious' tone. "Don't do that. You got that injury trying to save my life, so nothing about it is unfair to me. I've been working hard to stop feeling guilty about it so we can grow stronger together. Don't you dare start getting guilty about things like that, now."

He didn't know how to respond with words, but he did realize he no longer felt like throwing up, so he turned around and sat against the bathtub, offering a weak smile.

"If anyone I know can deal with this, it's you," she said with utter conviction, which was exactly how he felt about her.

* * *

**Day 4: Loyalty**

"Maka, you've never been on a date before?"

"No."

"Has Soul ever—?"

"Nope, not that I know of."

"Ah. You know you don't have to be loyal to someone you're not actually dating, right?"

Maka shot Liz a pointed look, but the older Thompson sister didn't flinch; she just grinned smugly. As much as Maka would have liked to start lecturing about how Soul had nothing to do with her choices and she had nothing to do with Soul's choices, she knew Liz would see right through her. Anyway, she was getting tired of denying it.

"I'm - nobody's preventing anyone from doing anything," she said weakly, and turned back to her book. "We're just not really interested in that kind of thing."

"Okay, what you do is your business," Liz said. "I'm not gonna try to force you to confess or anything like that. But you're trying to tell me neither of you, two young adults with hormones and all that stuff, and always - you know - touching…"

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Maka asked.

"You have to admit, you two do a lot of touching. But anyway," Liz continued, waving off any potential protest, "I think it's pretty obvious that you're holding out for each other."

Maka shrugged. "Whatever you wanna think, Liz."

The conversation stuck with Maka long after Liz wisely changed the subject. In fact, she thought over it very carefully that night as she rested her head against Soul's shoulder. His music was playing and she was reading, but she sneaked a surreptitious look at his face.

He glanced down at her. Oops. "What?" he asked.

"Nothing," she answered quickly, returning to her book. He didn't press the issue. A minute later he did move his arm; she almost protested until she realized he was wrapping it around her shoulders, pulling her close. This was not unusual for him, but…

"Hey, Soul?"

"Hmm?"

"Have you ever been on a date?" As far as she was concerned, this was a rhetorical question. Maka knew where Soul was at all times, not because she kept tabs on him but just because their schedules were so intertwined. Her heart pounded anyway, knowing where this conversation might go.

She felt him tense immediately and looked up at his face. He was looking back curiously. After some careful consideration, apparently, he said, "Nah. I haven't."

She was about to respond when he added, "Well, I'm pretty sure, anyway…"

"What does that mean?" Maka asked nervously.

"Well it's…not with anyone other than - I don't know if it counts…" Soul was flushed as red as his own eyes.

"What?" She bit her lip.

Soul took a deep breath. "Does anything we've done count as a date?"

Maka's eyebrows shot up as far as they could possibly go, and her heart skipped a beat. "I guess that depends. D-do you want it to…?"

"I mean, that would be cool, but only if you want it to." He looked down shyly.

She sat up and tugged at his shirt. He followed her lead wearing a questioning expression at first, but realized soon enough what she wanted and leaned in to meet her light, gentle kiss. His lips were a little dry and very warm, and it only lasted a few moments, but it was an addictive sensation.

"Maka," he whispered against her mouth.

"Soul," she responded, smiling.

* * *

**Day 5: Wounds (Part I)**

As a kid, he hadn't realized how much his offhand comments upset her.

They had gone out to dinner with Kid and the Thompsons, and both had dressed nicely - Maka somewhat more enthusiastically than Soul. She'd put on a trendy, knee-length skirt and jacket combination, one he'd never seen before.

"How do I look?" she asked, excited.

The truth of the matter was she looked absolutely gorgeous. He kind of wished their friends weren't going to be there so he could have her all to himself for the night; she couldn't know that, though, so instead he said, "You look like a dweeby little nerd, as always."

She punched him on the arm, possibly harder than necessary, and called him a jerk.

Despite his ineptitude with verbal communication, Soul was at least good at reading people, and for the rest of the night, Maka seemed off-kilter. He could have been imagining any one specific instance of it, but by the time they arrived home and she decided to get a few chores done before going to bed, it was still happening.

On her way from the bathroom to her bedroom, she kept her head down and did not say goodnight as usual.

"'Night, Maka," he offered casually, hoping to engage her in a nicer communication.

"G'night," she mumbled grumpily, pointedly not looking at him. She shut her door before he could respond again.

Soul retired to his own room and flopped on his bed, the ideal position for thinking about the proper course of action.

On one hand, he couldn't be a hundred percent sure this was his fault. On the other hand, he could be about ninety-nine percent sure it was. In the past, he would have been angry with her for being angry, would have thought she was being too sensitive about an obvious joke or wasn't trying hard enough to understand why he couldn't openly shower her with compliments.

Granted, this was a new development. Until tonight, she'd always reacted like an angry volcano but recovered very quickly. She had seemed more annoyed than hurt. So what had changed? She'd had a different outfit. That was it.

Regardless, he would have to do something. Soul was in the process of deciding whether to go knock on her door or give her until the morning when he heard a knock on his own door. He stepped over to open it and was completely unsurprised to see Maka standing there.

"You know, I couldn't sleep without just reminding you what a huge jerk you are," she said venomously. Ah, there was the straightforward meister he knew.

Soul tended to mirror Maka's moods, especially when that mood was directed at him, so it took all of his self-control not to snap back with "What the hell did I do?!" Instead of fighting with her, he bit his tongue (literally, just to remind himself not to be stupid), pulled the door wider, and stood aside. He tried not to look like he'd been weaned on lemons and probably failed.

She just looked at him, confusion replacing a small amount of the anger in her expression.

"You wanna come in?" he asked gruffly. Maka's eyes widened, but she strode in anyway. Soul sat on the bed and invited her to sit next to him.

"Look, I'm sorry," he said as she sat. "You know I like to tease you because it's fun, right? And not because I'm being serious?"

"Yeah, Soul. It's fun for you. That's really cool."

Dammit. He should probably never try to explain anything ever again.

"I mean, it's not supposed to be bad. I don't actually mean to hurt you. It's…"

Maka gave him a sidelong glance. "And I don't actually care what you think. I was just telling you. It doesn't really matter what you say."

The idea that she didn't care about his opinion stung; he once again resisted the temptation to fire back. "But you seemed…grumpy all night and then you showed up at my door."

"Yeah, well, maybe you could have said something nice just this once."

"First you're telling me my opinion doesn't matter, then you're telling me it does? Which is it?"

Maka glared, eyes hard, with "you should know what I want to hear" written in her gaze. Then, just as he opened his mouth, he noticed the beginnings of teardrops in her eyes. "Yeah, okay? It doesmatter and I do care. Are you happy?" she said to the floor through gritted teeth.

"No! Of course I'm not happy!" Soul said emphatically, a bit terrified by the idea that he'd made his meister cry. "Not at all! I never meant any of it! It was a joke! It's just - what I do, joke about people I like!"

"Are you saying you show affection by saying awful things?"

"No! I mean, I guess, sometimes. Yeah. I thought you knew that!"

Maka shook her head and wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her nightclothes. "I always knew you were rough around the edges, and I always knew you liked to tease friends. But Soul, you can only hear something so many times before you start believing it's true!"

He couldn't have felt more stricken if she'd literally hit him. "You really think I think you're—"

"Ugly? Yes!" She held her hand up when he gasped. "I don't doubt your loyalty as a friend or as a weapon, and I don't expect you to find me pretty because it's not necessary, but I'd like it if you could just be courteous and stop insulting me on special occasions."

"What - but…no!" Soul insisted, standing up so that he could gesticulate wildly. "That's completely wrong! I don't think you're ugly, okay?! I just say the opposite of what I mean!"

Maka squinted and blinked a few times. "That doesn't make any sense."

"I dunno, it's some kind of Freudian defense mechanism or something." Soul scratched the back of his head, finally standing still in front of her, face as hot as burning coals. "The point is, when I said that thing earlier tonight I was just being…stupid and was really not expecting you to take me seriously at all."

Maka looked up at him, eyes considerably drier. "You're really serious? Why would I have not known that this whole time?"

Soul sat down next to her again, feeling more in-control. "Let me tell you something."

* * *

**Day 6: Bandages (Part II)**

Maka tilted her head curiously, still maintaining her stern, defended look.

"I uh. I say these things because - man, this is stupid when I say it out loud - I just like to talk about it. But telling you outright - I couldn't do that. So I just kind of…pick on things and argue with you about them. So then we get to talk but I don't have to admit anything, even to myself."

"Wait, what? Talk about what? Tell me what? …Admit what? You're so vague!"

Soul was anxious enough that the room was spinning before his eyes. He had only intended to mend Maka's wounds, not confess everything. But he was going in that direction. This would probably be more than she bargained for. He took one of her hands in his, hoping it would offer some kind of comfort.

"That, uh. Well, I do think you're nerdy and you definitely have tiny tits and nothing will change that - but I like those things about you and…I actually think you're very…cute. And pretty."

Maka's blush inspired him further. "O-oh," she said, and offered what he assumed was supposed to be a smug grin. It just came across as a slightly sheepish, relieved smile.

What he'd said hadn't been good enough. 'Cute and pretty.' Middle school stuff. Was he nine years old?

"What I'm trying to say is that you're beautiful and I have a backasswards way of telling you." He just stared at his hands, which were clenched on his knees.

"And you just…couldn't say what you meant? You had to make fun of me?"

It was like getting slashed across the chest all over again, except this time he felt regret too. "Yeah. I'm sorry. I couldn't tell you because I was afraid of what you'd think. Also, it probably has something to do with how I don't like putting myself out there too much."

"Hey, Soul?"

Her tense voice made him glance at her. He was absolutely terrified of what she might say even though he had no clue what it would be. "Yeah?"

"I kind of picked out that outfit because I thought you'd like it. Liz and Patti and Tsubaki helped me."

Soul stared at her, dumbfounded. That was why this particular comment on this particular night had pushed her buttons so badly. "I'm a fucking idiot," he announced.

Maka giggled, and it broke the tension. His anxiety was drought, her mirth was rain. "But you're myidiot."

Soul looked into her eyes intensely. "Yes, entirely. And I mean it."

"Hey, watch out. You might give me ideas," she flirted.

Soul put one hand lightly on her cheek, keeping his other in her grip. He'd seen someone do this in a movie Maka enjoyed once. "I've never known if there would be a right time to tell you, or if you'd even want to hear it. But now I think it's important for you to know that I want you. You're already my meister and my best friend, but I…I want you in other ways, too."

He glanced aside bashfully, very new at this whole "confession" thing. Would this be the right time for 'I love you'? That would be a huge risk. It was true, but how would she respond? It would be better to leave it at something equally passionate, equally descriptive of how attracted he was to her, but with less…baggage. For now, anyway.

Maka's eyes widened (they were luminous, she was adorable, he was terrified anew of fucking up) and then, slowly, she graced him with another smile, unguarded and beaming.

"Oh," she laughed, blushed, buried her face in her hands as he put his own hand comfortingly on her knee, "and well - I've been feeling the same way about you."

Soul could not for the life of him stop the dopey grin that spread across his features.

After that, the kiss came naturally to both of them. Unpracticed though they were, they moved quickly to a deeper, wetter kiss. Her lips were so ridiculously soft and warm and delicious, her mouth so sweet; he'd never gotten hard this fast in his life. She tugged him down onto the bed, where he wrapped her in an all-encompassing embrace.

"I didn't think you really cared," he murmured into her hair. "You have so much going for you…I figured teasing you about your appearance would be no big deal at all…especially coming from me—"

"Shhhh, Soul, shut up," Maka laughed into his chest. She tightened her arms around him. "It's okay. I forgive you." She lifted her face to his for another quick kiss. "Can I stay in your room tonight?"

"If you really want to…I'd love you to stay."

* * *

**Day 7: First "I love you"**

"I want to come, too," Maka had told him.

Soul gave his partner/girlfriend a look of disbelief. "But you hate jazz."

"I don't hate jazz, Soul."

"Isn't that what you said?"

"Well, I dunno. I was angry because I don't understand it and…you do. But I'm past that now."

He shrugged and ruffled her hair affectionately. "Okay, if you want. It's at eight tonight."

At seven-fifteen, Maka had appeared in the living room wearing her nicest white blouse and skirt with pink accents. He'd stared, and she'd noticed. She gave him a cheeky grin and held his hand on their walk to the Death City Jazz Club.

Miles Davis had been one of Soul's favorite musicians for a long time, and Soul had been absolutely thrilled to find that he would be at the local venue. He'd assumed Maka would not be interested in coming, and instead counted on dropping by with Liz, Patty, and Kirikou, who were also going. As he held his meister's hand walking through the streets of Death City, he felt a little nervous about what she would think of the esoteric music. He wanted to share it with her, but in the past, she had not responded well to it…

"Wow, it's crowded," she commented of the dimly-lit little club.

"The guy's popular." He could have used his stature as the Last Death Scythe to get a seat somewhere, but Soul didn't want to do that. He wanted to be passive for the night, stay out of the spotlight and simply take in the music.

"I guess so. Are we gonna be able to get a table?" Maka asked.

"Doesn't look like it." Soul sighed, more for her benefit than his own, but she seemed unperturbed.

They resolved to spend the night standing in the back of the room near the bar, where their friends had already taken a number of the stools. As the music started, Maka drifted closer and closer to Soul until she was leaning against him entirely.

"What do you think?" he asked as he wrapped his arm around her shoulder.

"I don't get it," she said, but she was beaming. Soul smiled back.

"Try not to think too hard about it," he said.

He had to admit, having her there took the experience from amazing to perfect. Well into the performance when everyone was quiet and the lights were almost entirely out and the music was at its height, he closed his eyes, losing himself in the moment. Her body heat kept him warm, and she was patient, uttering not a single word but leaning into him as he leaned into her.

Soul did not have soul perception and they were not actively resonating, but he definitely felt the chemistry between their souls in that moment. He stole a glance at her face and realized that she also had her eyes closed. Heh, was she trying to concentrate on listening or stealing a nap on him?

They'd grown so much, he thought, since they'd come into this little place so he could demonstrate his piano playing so long ago. It meant the world to him that this spirited, courageous woman wanted to be with him here, even if she didn't exactly "get" the strange music.

Maka's expression was one of a person entirely at peace. Soul kissed the crown of her head, hugging her close with his arm and letting the faint sweetness of her shampoo compliment the music. The adoration bloomed deep in his chest, and he knew what he had to say next.

They hadn't said it before, but he knew she knew anyway.

He knew she'd reciprocate.

"Maka. I love you," he murmured (loudly, so she would hear) into her soft, wispy, divinely-scented hair. She opened her eyes, looking up at him and smiling hugely as he leaned down to kiss her.

"I love you too, Soul," she responded, voice humming against his lips.


	8. Chapter 8

**Happy Birthday to Fabulousanima (based on her Dogwalker AU)**

"Oni, no," Soul said, trying not to sound as out-of-control as he felt with the dog dragging him toward the little blue house's porch. Naturally, the giant red menace did not listen, and today he was on a mission.

Soul tried next to steer his charge toward a nearby fire hydrant, hoping maybe Oni would smell something interesting there and forget all about whatever was so interesting in these innocent people's yard, but it wasn't happening. Oni reached the porch and stuck his head under, sniffing rapidly, tail wagging cheerfully.

"What the hell," Soul snarled through gritted teeth as the dog scrambled to get completely underneath. He would have laughed at the way Oni tried awkwardly to flatten himself out and the way his limbs scrabbled into the dirt if he wasn't concerned about what the people who may or may not have been home inside the house would be thinking.

His thoughts were interrupted by a dark shape dashing out from underneath the porch only to be cornered against the house a few feet away by Oni, who had jerked the leash especially hard. Soul recognized the awkward, gangly shape of an adolescent puppy cowering against the house's foundation, and with one final desperate adrenaline surge caused by not wanting to see the huge dog terrorize or injure a smaller one, he managed to hold Oni at bay about a foot away from the pup.

He needn't have worried, though. The smaller dog - some kind of black and tan mutt - was obviously still frightened, but Oni's tail was wagging harmlessly and he was sniffing excitedly in the little creature's direction.

"Hello…can I help you?" asked an uncertain voice. Soul glanced up onto a porch, where a woman was watching with a little girl by her side.

"Ah, sorry to intrude," Soul said. "Oni wanted to meet your dog, I guess." He gestured at the pup, who was now sniffing cautiously back in Oni's direction.

"Oh, not a problem," the woman said with newfound understanding. "But we don't have a dog. That isn't ours."

"Really?" He frowned. "It's just a puppy. Must belong to one of the neighbors."

"I've never seen it around before," the woman added. "Could be new, I guess."

"Maybe we could keep it?" the little girl asked hopefully.

"We've talked about this, Rachel. We don't have the money or space for it."

"Awwww, Mom…"

"I guess I'll check with the neighbors, then," Soul said, feeling responsible for the pup. He walked over to the two dogs, the leash falling slack for once as the black and tan stray was getting fully acquainted with Oni and Oni was too interested to go anywhere. He scooped up the little dog, who wiggled too much but did seem inclined to follow Oni.

Soul began to suspect it was a homeless pup, since it looked scraggly and unkempt, but he tried asking about it at the doors of every surrounding property and each house on the block. Some people weren't home, and no one else claimed the animal (Soul realized it was a female when it stopped for a pee).

Oni and the puppy seemed to get along well. After the initial shock of meeting such a truly colossal, enthusiastic friend wore off, the puppy (sweet lord she needed a name) would bounce around at Oni's feet, more graceful than he was, and lick his nose. Oni panted happily.

Finally, Soul took out his phone to check the time.

Shit. He was supposed to be meeting Maka in ten minutes.

He called her immediately. "Hey," he said, her bright answer bringing out the cheer in his own. "So I was out walking Oni and we found this stray puppy. I'm really sorry, but I think I'm gonna have to figure out what to do with her before we meet. She doesn't seem to belong to anyone around here."

"I understand," Maka said. "Hey, actually, can I meet you wherever you're gonna be instead? I wanna see the puppy!"

"Uh…sure. I have to drop Oni off first and it's a bit of a walk. Maybe you can meet me at my place? I know it's a hike for you…"

"No problem! I'll see you in a while."

* * *

Keeping the puppy's attention after he dropped Oni off was not difficult, thankfully. All it took to get her to follow was an offer of a piece of the oat bar he'd stuck in his pocket and forgotten to eat. He only had to whistle to her occasionally to get her all the way back to his apartment.

Strictly speaking, small-to-medium-sized dogs were allowed at his place, but they had to be paid for as part of the rent, so technically she wasn't allowed here. It would be okay temporarily, though, right…?

Maka was waiting for him when he arrived. The sight of her standing at his door made him smile broadly - he would have been grinning like an idiot even if she hadn't caught his eye and beamed at him. Thinking about how he wasn't sure if it was too early to offer her a key to his place - he wanted her to be able to let herself in, though they'd only been dating for a little while - he almost forgot about the puppy at his feet.

"What a cutie!" Maka remarked, giving Soul a quick kiss and immediately sitting on the ground so the pup could cautiously sniff her way over. Maka ruffled her half-perked little ears affectionately. "I wonder how old she is."

Soul opened the door so they could all go inside. "Dunno," he responded. "Several months, maybe?"

Maka stood up and brought the puppy with her. "She looks like a really gangly rottweiler."

"Yeah, I was thinking maybe she's a rottweiler mix. With some lab or something."

Maka brought the puppy over to the couch and plopped her on the cushion. "What are you gonna do with her now?"

Soul sat down on the other side. "I guess I'll have to put up some ads saying we found her. If anyone's looking, they'll come get her. …I don't really want to put her in a shelter. I don't know if I could keep her, but I'd rather at least wait a while."

Maka nodded. "Seems like a good plan. Think she's housebroken?"

Soul's eyes widened. "Actually, I'm not sure. That might be an issue…" He trailed off as the puppy ambled over and climbed on his lap, already taking up more space than it seemed to realize. She put her paws on his chest and started to lick his face; he chuckled and ruffled her fur, not a fan of dog breath but not wanting to push her away.

"Awww, so adorable," Maka cooed from her side of the couch.

Soul finally lifted the puppy's little paws and studied her face. "Yeah, I'll admit, she is."

Maka giggled flirtatiously. "This time I wasn't talking about the puppy."

* * *

**"Find a partner you have good chemistry with" - a hypothetical scenario for Tumblr user vi3009.**

Sid used his usual phrase, an old standby he employed every semester when the new students were introduced to each other: "Find a partner you have good chemistry with."

Maka glanced around the room. There were a lot of weapons in this batch - she would try asking all of them what sort of weapon they were. Certainly someone here had to be a scythe! She regretted that she had to be so choosy, as many of them seemed like very nice people, but she could always be their friend without having to partner up.

Out of the corner of her eye, she watched the sullen, unpleasant-looking boy with white hair. And - was that a bit of drool?! Well, maybe she'd try that weapon anyway. He didn't seem to want to be here at all, which admittedly piqued her curiosity but also left her annoyed.

Meanwhile, Soul observed all his potential partners with distaste. He hadn't taken into account how close meisters and weapons were expected to be. Find someone he had "chemistry" with? That sounded like a lot of emotional crap he wasn't interested in dealing with. Maybe this was the wrong place for him after all.

That cheerful little blonde in particular caught his eye - not as someone he'd want to partner with, but as a force of nature who left him baffled. How could she have so much freaking energy? Just watching her chatting with people tired him out.

* * *

She'd been through so many conversations with weapons. All of them were nice, in their way; none of them were scythes.

She finally worked up the nerve to go talk to the sulky one. He looked like he was ready to bite the head off of anyone who got anywhere near his personal space.

Soul hadn't approached a single person. He'd stood off to the side, watching as people paired off with more sociable weapons. He was wondering what the protocol would be if he didn't find a partner at all. Look around among the more experienced students? That wouldn't be any easier, though.

The dorky blonde girl from earlier was walking toward him. And she wasn't stopping - oh, it was clear she meant to talk to him. This did not compute.

"I'm Maka," she offered politely.

"I'm Soul," he answered cautiously, nodding and truly catching her eye for the first time.

From her perspective, that was better than the rudeness she'd been bracing herself for. Perhaps he was just shy? She felt a spark of something - oh, a spark of _interest_. Was this chemistry?

"What kind of weapon are you?" she asked.

"I'm a scythe," he answered.

He did not expect what came next. Maka's face lit up like a tree on Christmas morning, like fireworks on the Fourth of July.

"Really?! You're a scythe?!" she practically squealed. "I'm looking for a scythe! Want to team up?" This was fantastic! She'd found someone! Now he just had to say 'yes'…

"I uh." The truth of the matter was, he wasn't certain about any of this partnership business. A few minutes ago, hadn't he been contemplating whether he belonged here at all?

But he saw an image of himself glowering at the world from afar, and then one of her approaching him anyway. He felt a spark of something - it could have been hope. Maybe he wasn't going to fail after all. Was this the "chemistry" that guy had been talking about?

"Sure." Soul accepted Maka's enthusiastic handshake. "But first, we should meet at that little jazz cafe by the front of the stairs. If we're gonna be partners, I need to show you something."

* * *

**Distracted: for Odat**

Soul had convinced Maka to sit high up and far back in the room, away from the direct attention of the people who were introducing themselves in the front. Classes were getting weirder and weirder ever since the new alliance had been forged, but everyone was taking it in stride, as usual.

Her partner and boyfriend (presumably) (details were fuzzy but the kisses probably spoke for themselves) was doodling. It was a new habit he'd picked up a year or two ago, and he only did it when he was painfully bored _and_ needed to stay awake. Maka used to try to make him stop, but he wasn't doing any harm, the professors assumed he was taking notes, and she enjoyed his drawings anyway.

Today he'd started with a number of cartoonish depictions of monsters they'd battled. But now he'd moved on to a simple, slightly cutesy depiction of a little angel with widely-stretched wings, in whose hands he drew a scythe, on whose head he drew a pair of pigtails.

Maka nudged him with her knee and smiled when he glanced over. She leaned with as much subtlety as possible against his side.

"Not done yet," he whispered, and added a pair of devil horns and an arrow tail to the little angel, who now looked much more mischievous.

What a _smartass_. Maka pinched him hard and he barely stifled a gasp.

SEE?! I'M ONTO YOU, "ANGEL," he wrote underneath the doodle.

Maka was going to shoot him one of her semi-flirtatious disapproving glares, but found herself trying to stifle giggles when she saw him glance sideways at her, flaunting the entirely-flirtatious grin he wore.

* * *

**Manic: for Red**

Soul had thought many times about what was the most insane time of the night to still be awake. He settled on 4:00 AM, reasoning that it was too many hours after midnight even for a night owl but a little too early to be called an all-nighter.

Of course, he had been up until 4:00 AM and later on numerous occasions.

This time, though, he'd actually been asleep, waking up only to use the toilet when he noticed the bright light still under Maka's partially-open door. Ah, she must have fallen asleep on her books again. He knocked softly, assuming he would not receive an answer and would just lean in to shut the light off..

Instead he heard an irate "What is it?"

"Maka? You're awake?" he asked incredulously.

"I'm working. What do you want?"

Soul nudged the door open and peered in. "Why are you studying at four in the morning? Wouldn't it be better to just be well-rested?"

"No," she snapped, and then continued with less rage and more regret. "I realized I've had this thing about dissonance wrong the entire time. It changes my understanding of everything and I just…can't sleep until I figure it out."

If he was completely honest with himself, he knew what she was talking about and didn't understand it either, but he wasn't going to bring that up now because he wanted to go back to bed soon. "It's taking you this long?"

"Well, I think I got it mostly figured out, but I decided I'm on a roll, so I should just finish the paper that's due next week as well. I've only got about four pages left to write. It should help me understand the subject even better. Then I can sleep."

He just stared, flummoxed, at his meister hunched over her desk. Her logic was sound - kind of - but how on Earth (or in any other realm) could anyone become this driven about schoolwork in the middle of the night on Friday without being threatened by a deadline?

Wordlessly, he left and made a beeline for the kitchen. When he returned with a cup of tea and set it on her desk, he muttered, "Snobby overachiever."

"Stupid slacker. Thanks," she answered.

* * *

**Lustful: for anon**

It took some time for her to admit that she was drawn to his teeth.

At first, she'd insisted to herself that they were kind of weird-looking and unattractive. It wasn't necessarily unheard of for weapons to have some physical traits related to their weapon genes, but the modified shark/demon teeth he sported were still fairly unusual.

After one too many of his saucy grins, though, she had to admit that  
"weird" was not bad. In fact, weird was very good. Sleep-deprivingly  
good.

But only for him. It would be perverted for her to ever admit being attracted to them out loud, right? If it ever got back to him that she wanted to know what those teeth would feel like to touch, what they would be like against her tongue, what they would feel like on every inch of her body…

Well, that would be a problem.

Fortunately, thanks to a little perspective and a number of kinky conversations courtesy of Liz and Tsubaki, Maka refined her views and embraced her feelings about teeth.

After that, their blossoming relationship soon provided Soul with an opportunity to learn the numerous benefits of giving his meister love bites.

* * *

**Breathless: for anon**

Soul and Maka's kisses started out sweet, chaste, and gentle. They wanted to linger on the warmth and softness of each other's lips. They spent their time curled together on the couch, kissing lightly over and over, hands roving shyly wherever it seemed safe to go: back, shoulders, arms, face, hair. Sometimes they giggled too much and had to pause. No matter how they ended, these moments always took their breath away and left them feeling blissful, fantastically lucky, and hungry for more.

It wasn't certain who took it a step further. Really, it had to be mutual. The tips of their tongues met; at first they caressed each other with nervous little strokes, focusing on the new sensations and the taste of each kiss and the fact that yes, this thing - for which there were no words reverent enough - was _actually happening_. The amazement never really went away, but the nerves did. Their kisses could be tender and playful at once, tongues circling each other flirtatiously.

It was difficult to keep their hands in safe territory anymore. They stayed outside of clothes, but otherwise roamed freely. She always loved to have a hand on his back so she could hold him close, but she also moved her other hand to his incredibly thick hair or down to grab his ass. He moved his hands, too. He loved to thread his fingers through her hair, but he also loved to trace the contours of her body all the way down to her shapely behind. And her splendid breasts fit _perfectly_ in his hands. They made out on every available surface, and it felt impossible to be physically close enough.

They got so lost in this experience at times that they could have forgotten to breathe, too wrapped in each other's arms to worry about it.

Soul and Maka were both terrified of rushing anything, but eventually, love and desire and desperation for closeness carried them through. They grinded against each other needily, trying in vain not to make any noise; each knew how best to leave the other gasping with arousal. Soon their hands dipped under their clothes, worshiping the most secret parts of each other with an adoring fascination.

This went all the way to shuddering, breathless orgasm for both of them.

And this was euphoria. They never stopped loving the little kisses too, though.

* * *

**Puzzled: for Fabulousanima**

Soul wasn't usually the type to let himself get all bent out of shape about stupid school assignments, but today - this was a hell of an exception.

Stein had informed Maka that if her partner couldn't prove that he understood English grammar on the next exam, he couldn't in good conscience (that, Soul suspected, was sarcasm) give the scythe a passing grade in class, and it would slow down their progress through school. Naturally, Maka had been livid, but Soul had also been uncharacteristically angry.

Soul wrote based on what felt right. He thought that in every way that truly mattered, he did understand grammar. He just couldn't explain it to other people. He couldn't consistently name which part of speech a word was, he couldn't always pick out the prepositions and their objects, he didn't give a shit about what the tenses were called as long as they were consistent. Goodness knew Soul was no Shakespeare, but his writing was perfectly effective - why was Stein being such a damn stickler about all this trivial information?

As he sat there staring at his schoolbook, hoping that maybe he could set it on fire with his eyes, Soul realized the true source of his anger was probably guilt for being a drag on Maka. This only pissed him off further, because she was exactly one of those people who was the problem - so fucking picky about writing!

A knock on his door startled him out of his thoughts. It was more tentative than usual, and he remembered regretfully how surprised Maka had been when he yelled at her over the homework before storming off into his room.

"Everything all right?" she asked through the door, obviously trying to sound casual.

"Just fuckin' dandy," he mumbled. When she didn't respond, he added more loudly, "Sorry. I just really don't get why everyone cares so much about this."

"Can I come in?" she asked after another pause.

"Why would you do that?" he said warily.

"So I can help you."

"Uh, I…guess." The door opened and Maka came to stand next to his desk. "I dunno how you're gonna do anything, though. It's just a bunch of stupid rules I have to memorize. They're all right here." She had been so upset earlier today; he was suspicious of her calmness.

"Look," she said as though reading his mind. In a way, she probably was. "I don't want you to fail."

"Aren't you going to kick me out the window or something until I get everything right?"

Maka gave him an embarrassed look. "Well, that doesn't seem to work, and I've never really tried sitting down and helping you. Trust me, if you're patient, I can be a pretty good teacher!"

She smiled, jauntily putting her hands on her hips, and he quickly banished the naughty-student scenario that popped up in the back of his mind.

* * *

**Envy: for anon**

Soul envied Maka's easy smile. She was so friendly but so forthright; her energy around other people seemed boundless. She could bridge any gap between people with willpower alone and read anyone's soul like a book. Hers was a vital, expansive magic.

Maka envied Soul's talent. He understood things she could never conceive of, could translate anyone's feelings into music. It was as if he could see into another world and speak another language. His was an unfathomable, poetic magic.

Each thought - no, _knew_ \- the other was the superior partner; why couldn't they just accept that?!

Thankfully, where there was envy, there was still no resentment, nothing to keep them from admiring and growing closer and closer. Maka gained the ability to see herself through Soul's eyes, while Soul gained the ability to see himself through Maka's eyes. And even though they always left each other awestruck, neither felt inferior anymore.


	9. Chapter 9

**Aroused**

Holy Death - she could feel him back there.

She didn't know exactly how to label their relationship. They hadn't tried yet. She was pretty sure spooning on the couch was not considered a platonic activity, but they hadn't talked anything over. Or gone any further. They hadn't even kissed. Is there a proper order to kissing and spooning? Had they done something backwards?

The first evening, they had fallen asleep this way on the couch. He had kept her so warm and happy she hadn't wanted to get a blanket; they were almost late for class the next morning and he complained about his arm falling asleep (it was because he had it wrapped around her all night).

But the next evening, he had done exactly the same thing. Sidled up to her gradually, put his arm around her, leaned over to hint that he wanted to lie down. Maka had taken some satisfaction in the disappointed look he wore when she got up to subtly set an alarm so they wouldn't have to worry about it, but it also made her rush back.

Sleeping in their day clothes was uncomfortable, though, so in a kind of unspoken agreement, both put on some nightclothes before sitting down to relax for the evening this time. It was different without the thick, durable, slightly starchy fabric of more "proper" clothes.

The shapes of their bodies flowed together so much more neatly.

And now she could feel Soul's arousal pressed against her rear. She'd been horny before, but it was in no way like the feeling this inspired. Perhaps it was the closeness.

When she turned around enough to gauge his expression, he was already bright red (though judging from the heat in her cheeks, she was not looking any more relaxed). He immediately shrugged in the sideways manner of people who are lying down. "Sorry," he whispered.

"No, it's okay, but is that…real?"

"I…uh…what does that mean…?"

"Do you really feel that way?"

Soul glanced away from her eyes - later she would realize he'd been looking at her lips. "I do, but it doesn't matter so don't worry about it," he answered at last.

"What if I like it?" she asked.

"Oh. Then uh…"

She tilted her head to meet his kiss.

* * *

**Texts from last night meme: (+44):I just got a free round of shots. Don't you DARE fuckin tell me that A-cup boobs can't get you good things. soma**

Well, she didn't want hers, but Black Star, Liz, Patti, and Tsubaki guzzled them enthusiastically while she sent the text.

In all honesty, the bartender creeped her out a little bit. It was unnerving to have a stranger compliment her "figure" in public, in front of everyone, and even weirder for him to offer her party free alcohol because of it, but before she'd had a chance to formulate a decent retort, the idea for the text had struck and she decided to just let it go for now.

Her friend (and awkward maybe-love-interest; some important discussions were still to be had) had stayed home tonight with a mild headache. She'd been disappointed and annoyed at first, but he'd actually apologized for not coming and she realized he was not merely trying to avoid socializing. She had promised to bring him some good food for a midnight snack, when he'd hopefully be feeling better.

Her phone buzzed with Soul's response.

_what? i havent even insulted your boobs in years_

Yeah, but a few years before that, he'd been a real jerk about it. She was in the middle of composing a sassy response when he sent another text.

_also what are you doing_

She grinned, mischief in her eyes, and answered with what she hoped was a flirtatious _Wouldn't you like to know?_

At that very moment, Liz began an animated, somewhat tipsy discussion about nail polish. Not wanting to be rude, Maka didn't check her phone even when it buzzed a few times.

When she checked again, there were three unread messages.

_why is someone looking at your chest?_

_maka_

_maka wait whats happening_

She chuckled at the phone screen. _Nothing's happening. Just a creepy bartender trying to flirt. I gave mine to Liz._

 _oh ok_ , came his response almost immediately. Soon after, another: _i am feeling a bit less shitty finally. any idea when youre gonna swing by?_

She glanced at her watch. Eleven at night. Well, if he was really that eager about it, maybe she'd be inclined to leave a bit early.

* * *

**Fictional place meme - Kanto: "They're comfy and easy to wear!"**

She rushed out of her room with a picnic basket and an incredibly thin green tank top. With spaghetti straps. And a bra. (He recognized it from the laundry, the one with the tiny banana print. She probably didn't realize it was visible through the fabric.)

"Man, that top is really…"

"Don't even start," she snarled. "It's way too hot to be worrying about my fashion sense and this is the only thing I own that doesn't make me feel like I'm getting cooked alive."

She'd been assuming, perhaps understandably, that he was going to complain about her appearance. However, his sentence was _intended_ to finish with "see-through." He _could_ have ended it with "distracting" if he had a death wish. And in some suppressed, inappropriate part of his consciousness, it sounded like: _Man, that top is really accentuating parts of you that I want to lick and I'm a little insecure about everyone in the city being able to see._

Instead he settled for grumbling, "Why do they even make those like that?"

"They're comfortable," she sniffed. "Why do you walk around shirtless?"

He only did that after showers, but she did have a point. Still, would a good weapon let his meister walk around in public bearing more than she intended?

"I can see your bra," he blurted.

"…Oh," she muttered, glancing down her front. "…Sssoooo? Who cares?"

He shrugged. If she didn't care, he really couldn't argue. But she continued to study herself for a minute.

"You can see the, uh, print?"

"Yeah, bananas," he said intelligently.

* * *

**Fictional place meme - Azeroth: "I won't fall for any bad pickup line. You've got to try two or three, at least."**

He brings her home a candy bar from the store. She hasn't asked him to do that. She gave no indication she was in the mood for one. He wasn't even shopping for groceries.

He tosses it to her from mere feet away like he doesn't give a shit, but she knows better because you don't bring home little gifts for people you don't care about. Maka grins a little and huffs.

"You're like this candy bar," she observes.

"I…what?" Soul asks, confused, and - if her reading is correct - not sure whether he should be offended. She offers her most sly grin.

"You're half sweet and half nuts," Maka continues, taking a small bite of the chocolate. She waits for him to roll his eyes, mutter something about what a dork she sounds like, and turn away with a faint blush on his cheeks.

It doesn't come. He does pause and regard her for a moment, but his rejoinder is, "I won't fall for any bad pickup line. You've got to try two or three, at least."

Now she has a beet-red face and no idea what to say.

"Yeah, well, whatever! I don't need any of those because I…pick you up all the time. In your…scythe form," she adds.

He's at her side immediately and whispers in her ear, "That's the lousiest one I've ever heard, but it's also the second. You win, Maka."

* * *

**Fictional place meme - Hogwarts: "Nothing like a nighttime stroll to give you ideas."**

She wanted to go for a "night walk."

He was dozing off on the couch at one in the morning, enjoying that weight-of-the-world-off-his-shoulders feeling that came from having no homework and no more exams for the foreseeable future. He felt someone poke his cheek and opened his eyes to the sight of Maka leaning directly overhead, eyes big and luminous, hair not quite brushing his face.

"It's so nice out. We should go for a night walk," she announced.

Soul was obligated by law to roll his eyes, but he sat up anyway and mussed the hair on the back of his head. "That's kinda random," he observed.

"They're better if they're random. You can't make plans for these."

He shrugged. It wasn't as if he had anything better to do, and for the amount of time they spent outside at night, they spent remarkably little of it relaxing.

Soul followed Maka's lead (she could never lead while dancing, but in this situation he supposed his feet were relatively safe from being stepped on). She brought them the long way through the city, through the eerily silent marketplace, along the walks through the ethereal nighttime gardens. No one said anything because it would have been superfluous.

When she had a chance, she would balance on the curbs, holding her arms out like an airplane. He knew for a fact she didn't need to do that to remain upright. What a _goofball_. He loved her.

And they came to the edge of the city. She kept going, and he kept following all the way to the edge of the woods Lord Death (the first) had long ago placed about a mile from town.

"It's really late, and it's gonna be really early by the time we get back," Maka said regretfully. "Guess we should turn around."

He started a slight resonance, just enough to get across: _We don't have to, you know. I've always wanted to sleep outside at night._

She grinned and took his hand, because she knew of a really cool spot to visit here.

* * *

**Fictional place meme - Toontown: "I'd love to embrace you, but first, I have to satisfy my sense of moral outrage."**

Soul's Uncle Alfred, Maka quickly found out, was an ass. Easygoing, informal, and charming, sure, but also an ass, at least about one thing.

All through dinner, he asked passive-aggressive questions about Soul's genetic background, life, and general existence. _Where could you have come from, anyway?_ and _Now, why would you leave such a classy life for the battlefield?_ and _How do you think your, uh, Shiboozen has affected your music?_ and _Do you think you'll want kids, even if they inherit the weapon thing?_

Soul held his own. He was, Maka felt, appropriately short with such rude questions, but he wasn't outright aggressive either, and so their first dinner with the extended family was not ruined.

Not by him. Almost by her temper.

"But level with me here," Alfred said. He sat on the other side of Soul, and his stage whisper was not hard to hear. "Bein' the weapon is the easy job, right? I mean, I only seen you in action on television, but it looks like your little lady there does all the work."

Maka slammed the end of her spoon into the table, at once denting the fine wood and bending the fancy silver. "No," she snarled. "Soul's job is not _easier_ than _anyone's_."

The whole table had gone silent, and Alfred's eyes were practically popping out of his head. "Oh," he said.

Maka felt Soul's hand on her shoulder. He squeezed it reassuringly and told everyone they would be right back, ushering her out of the dining room.

"I'm sorry, but I just can't listen to him talk to you like that," she said immediately when they were out of hearing range, arms crossed, ready to argue with him about it, too, if necessary.

Soul caught her up in a swift, tight embrace she hadn't been expecting. "I know. Thanks. Believe me, I'm glad you're on my side. But look, you don't have to stress about it. I know my family's ignorant about weapons, and he's not being mean on purpose."

She squeezed him back. "I'm not 'stressing' about it. It's just wrong, and if he were paying attention to you at all, he'd know he's making you uncomfortable!"

Soul shrugged helplessly around her. "This is reason number seven hundred and eighty three why I don't like coming home. I'm okay, though, I promise."

Maka sighed. "Fine. I won't yell at anyone again."

Soul pulled back and smirked. "You know what else Uncle Alfred probably thinks is weird?"

"What?"

"This." He kissed her softly, warmly.

* * *

**Fictional place meme - Equestria: "I am not 'whining.' I am complaining. Do you want to hear 'whining'?"**

"This is so much bullshit," he said for the millionth time.

"What is it _now_?" Maka asked irritably. She may have been letting the humidity get to her. There were parts of Louisiana that were charming and nice to visit; this pre-kishin's swamp was not one of them.

"What are you snapping at me for? I thought you were disappointed about wasting summer break on a mission, too?"

She sighed. "Yeah, but we're stuck with it and your whining doesn't make it any more tolerable."

" _Whining_?" Soul repeated with indignation as they slogged through the swamp. "I'm not even whining. I'm just…making conversation."

"You're complaining." She trudged through the mud, gripping her scythe's handle.

"I'd think you'd know the difference between whining and complaining, Little Miss Dictionary."

"And I thought you were too cool to care," Maka said, smirking at her weapon. It was late afternoon and the air was probably hotter and wetter than it was legal for a sauna to be.

"Makaaaa, why do you always have to be such a goody two-shoes? We could be lounging in air conditioning right now! Maaakaaaa!" Soul whined mockingly. "See? Whining."

"You may be in weapon form, but the heat is obviously going to your head."

"I'll show you _really_ annoying. Ugh Makaaaaa it's so _hot_ and _wet_ — oh," he started and then stopped abruptly.

She would have said something smug, but she was too busy blushing about what it sounded like.

* * *

**Fictional place meme - Four Nations: "You have a pretty strong scent."**

"Why are you in my bed?"

She wakes up to him leaning over her curiously. He's still disheveled from the basketball game (those have been getting rarer as life gets busier). This means she's been asleep for at least three hours.

"Smells like you," she murmurs sleepily. She's too drowsy and achy to care about how strange she sounds, though she does enjoy the light flush that startles across each of his cheeks.

"What? What are you— What do I… smell like?"

"I can't explain. Just like you."

"Is that a good thing?" he drawls, tone carefully casual.

"Excellent." She pauses, and her feverish brain finally forms some descriptive words. "Kinda spicey, probably from shampoo and stuff, and like skin I guess."

"Well, uh, that's…good? I'm gonna go shower because right now I probably smell like sweaty laundry. Are you feeling better?"

"No more headache. Still tired. Still got a backache."

"You know," he says, "I felt guilty about you getting this at first, but now that I realize you're going to hijack my bed, I'm glad I don't run the risk of catching your disease. Again."

She sticks her tongue out and grabs his arm before he has a chance to turn around. "Just stay and do whatever you do all day in here. Listen to records or whatever. Keep me company."

"I plan on that, but let me get clean first."

"Pfff, okay, fine."

She falls asleep again and only wakes up when he tells her to shove over so he can lie down.

* * *

**Fictional place meme - Discworld: "Five exclamation marks, the sure sign of an insane mind."**

On Saturday morning, Soul stood in his boxers in the kitchen, rubbing his eyes tiredly and wondering what the note on the cabinet was all about.

**_DO NOT OPEN!_ **

Doodled in the corner was a crude but recognizable angry Maka-face.

What horrors could be concealed behind that little door? Amusement mixed with slight worry buzzed hazily in the back of his mind.

He had no idea what it was, but the fervor with which she had written the note indicated that she suffered from a madness of which the Black Blood could only have dreamed. He stared at the cabinet, more curious for each exclamation mark.

But this was the end of four long, busy days for her specifically, and he had to wait until she got home in the afternoon (and he had long since been normally clothed) to find out.

"Oh, that." She smiled knowingly in the direction of the cabinet. "I just wanted to be here when you got it. I had to bring it last night when you were sleeping, so…"

"So you had to add all that punctuation?"

Maka shrugged and smirked. "You're kind of a contrary person, so I thought they might get my point across better."

He stuck his tongue out at her briefly, then dashed to the cabinet. Inside was a cake, which he moved to the counter.

"This is—?" he paused as he read the curly cursive frosting. On it was a date - this day, but five years ago.

"Our first resonance," she said, leaning back against the kitchen table, eyes sparkling. The realization hit him hard.

"Oh. I can't believe I didn't—"

"It's alright! I didn't even remember most years. So much has happened since then." This was a very casual understatement of the century. "But reorganizing my room jogged my memory."

He gave her a look, assessing the mood of the moment, before letting the huge grin take over his features. "You're cute."

"Hey now, what is that supposed to mean?!"

"Pffft, you figure it out. Are we gonna eat this cake or not?"

* * *

**Fictional place meme - Oz: "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain."**

"He's kind of scary, isn't he?" civilians would say about her partner, but only when he wasn't around. She would laugh. While she got along with outsiders, they were all incredibly naive.

"Well, he does drool a lot, but aside from that, he isn't scary at all."

Their response would usually consist of something like, "But he has red eyes and sharp fangs! And messy hair! And he's _rude_!"

Maka would smile back at them. "He's kind of like a…a hedgehog? Or porcupine. Spiky on the outside, soft on the inside."

At this point, one of three things would happen. The civilian might smile and nod knowingly. They might give her a disapproving look and turn their nose in the air, and she'd know to just shrug and ignore them.

Or Soul would appear, seemingly out of nowhere, and tug on her sleeve, telling her they had things to do.

* * *

**Fictional place meme - Gallifrey: "Do what I do. Hold tight and pretend it's a plan!"**

"You're going to—?"

"Just trust me, Soul."

"It's a long way down."

"I've held on for longer."

He grumbled, voice metallic from being in weapon form, but there was no point in arguing. She'd already starting striding toward the zip line. How convenient, he thought with no small amount of frustration and anxiety, that there just happened to be a zip line down the side of the mountain.

But still, in the back of his mind he knew that Maka always made things work best when she merely pretended to have a plan.

So he went with it when she slung his scythe form over the zip line and pushed off, holding on for dear life, taking the fastest, most insane route down the mountain through the rain.

There was a crash and an infuriated roar as the monster of the week - some sort of blackish-brown color, with six long legs, nine white eyes, and two mouths on one head - tore through a tree in an effort to get to his meister. But Maka was better than that thing in every way, and before its claw severed the zip line in front of them, she had used her inertia and Soul's handle to swing above the line and into the air.

And they called their attack as Warlock Hunter slammed down on the overgrown monster's head.


	10. Chapter 10

**Merpeople AU feat. sharkman!Soul (for peregr1ne)**

Maka doesn't trust land-dwellers. Nobody trusts land-dwellers.

They're swimming a little bit close to a settlement for comfort, because while she doesn't _trust_ land-dwellers, she is _curious_ about them.

Her best friend - she supposes he deserves that title, right? - is hanging around with her as usual. It's taken her some time to realize that in Soul-language, drifting about in the shadows nearby even when he doesn't have to translates vaguely into "I want to be your friend." And she loves having him around, so really, they both win.

They float near the end of a long rock jetty. It's too early in the spring for anyone to be swimming (land-dwellers are notoriously sensitive to cool water), but occasionally a family will appear on the beach. Often they do obnoxious things; they make a lot of noise, splash in the water, throw some of their garbage away.

But Maka likes watching them because sometimes, in their more relatable moments, they act like aquatic people. It's funny to watch lovers making out and parents trying to wrangle children and the dogs dashing back and forth on the beach, who always sense her presence but whose barks the land-dwellers don't heed.

Soul pokes fun at her for land-watching, but he insists on coming with her anyway.

As they watch, a pink-haired land-dwelling child starts climbing the rocks on the jetty. Their parents appear both preoccupied and unconcerned, and the child is fascinated by the deep, dark water that they can't see through anywhere near as well as aquatic people like Maka and Soul.

"Idiots," Soul mumbles of the parents, who seem to have their backs turned.

It takes less time than one would predict for the short child to make their way to the end of the jetty, and Maka has a feeling of foreboding when they start to set their oddly-shaped foot down close to the edge of the water on the algae-covered last rock.

Her instinct is completely correct. As the child slips and falls without even time to shriek, Maka has already begun to move forward.

"Maka!" Soul shouts behind her, and she can feel him following her; but she's too afraid to watch a child drown to stop now. Maka doesn't trust land-dwellers, but she doesn't want to see a little one die.

The child is far underwater already by the time she arrives, bubbling and scrambling frantically, bleeding from where their head hit the rock they'd slipped on, but she lifts them the several feet to the surface quickly and easily.

Maka does her best to deliver them gently to the surface of the rock. Though she intends to dash away immediately, she catches the child's eye, and there is so much fear in it that she has to stop and take a moment to smile and wave reassuringly.

The child's face changes from terror to wonder, and they start saying something unintelligible in a land-dweller language when Soul pops out of the water behind her with a menacing growl.

The child screams, and Maka realizes they are afraid of Soul's intimidating visage, all sharp teeth and gray skin and pointy edges. She doesn't know how to explain that he's nice, too, and before she can try, he pulls her back under the water.

"Soul, what the hell?!" she snarls. "You scared them! They were just a little kid!"

"Maka," he says urgently, putting his hands on her shoulders - but gently, to keep her attention rather than to restrain her. "I'd have saved the kid, too. I don't think it was wrong. But you scare _me_ sometimes, you know? You get so close to these people, and it's dangerous. If you're going to help them, you need to do it and get out. Please don't hang around."

She has to admit, she is a bit attracted to danger. She's attracted to him because he looks so tough. But what really melts her heart, what draws her to him much more strongly than the moon pulls at the water of the ocean, is the warm concern in his eyes. She puts her hands on top of his, holding them in place, and gives him an open gaze.

"I'll be alright, Soul," she says. "I promise. You don't have to follow me, and you don't have to worry about me."

"I don't wanna try to control you," he answers. "But I do want to, uh…" He's flushing prettily. "I do want to hang out with you, even when you're land-watching. And, well - I kinda lost my cool when I thought the adults might see you." He glances to the side. "You know what? Never mind. Sorry."

Maka smiles widely and taps him on the head to get him to look at her again. As soon as his curious eyes are on her own, she leans forward and presses her lips gently but firmly against his. Her eyes slide shut and she can only assume he's done the same as they kiss for a minute, hands intertwining now. _It's about time_.

He gives her the toothiest grin she's seen yet.

They distance themselves from the shore and look back. The child's parents have retrieved them, and they're hugging in relief on the shoreline. The child is probably trying to explain what they saw, and the parents probably don't believe them.

* * *

**Tsugumi + SoMa shenanigans for sassysimoneevans**

It figured that the tension between them would finally break after an outdoor practice session in the woods, of all times - when they were overheated, grimy, sweaty, even a little scraped; totally not at their most charming.

But it was fitting, in a way, since that was how they'd _first_ gotten to know each other.

They hadn't dropped the resonance yet when he transformed out of his Death Scythe form, and he noticed how _little_ she was (heh, concentrated passion) as he walked over to join her where she stood. Maka's gaze was bright and open. Soul felt comfortable enough not to break eye contact, so he grinned instead. As he got closer, her eyebrows rose and her smile began to seem expectant.

And that was all he needed to lean down and give her a peck on the lips.

After he did it, he second-guessed himself, worried that he'd screwed up after all. But she didn't even look surprised and her smile didn't falter. Instead, she took a deep breath and tugged on his upper sleeve to pull him in for another kiss.

They had been at this for a good few minutes, getting used to the heady spark of touching lips, figuring out where their hands should be and how to breathe in a situation like this, when they heard a voice from the nearby line of trees.

"Miss Maka, I– oh!" Tsugumi squeaked. He felt himself flush as brightly and as quickly as the underclassman did. His partner's face brightened, too.

"Hi, Tsugumi!" Maka called in an unnaturally high voice. She shifted her stance in embarrassment, stepping in front of Soul and putting her hands on her hips as if she could conceal what they'd been doing. "What's up?"

"Miss Maka, I uh… Professor Stein sent me for you!" Tsugumi said to the ground, still as bright as a tomato.

"Well, then, we'll go right to see him," Maka said, falsely confident. Tsugumi nodded and absolutely _bolted_ away, leaving the meister and weapon to look back at each other sheepishly.

"Guess we'd better head back," Soul said, scratching the side of his still-warm face.

"Yeah, let's go," Maka answered, leading the way, just as she would if nothing interesting had happened.

But they threaded their fingers together on the walk back and couldn't help some occasional giggling.

* * *

**Maka's Soul Perception is definitely great for secret makeouts**

_Maybe he's selfish for this, but he doesn't care - his favorite use of Maka's Soul Perception is ensuring that nobody walks in on one of their hot makeout sessions._

Soul had started by saying she doesn't have to do that, doesn't have to be on alert all the time. She says she doesn't mind, it's second nature now to keep track of people who are nearby. And she adds that she kind of enjoys using soul perception because she can see _his_ soul, too, and it's sexy to observe while they're fooling around.

He wishes he could see hers, but he also has a feeling it would be a lot like looking into her luminous eyes just after a well-placed hip thrust has made her gasp, or listening to the timbre of her voice when she's hummed after tasting his tongue.

When they're home, Maka always knows where Blair is. The cat has walked in on them snuggling on the couch, reading together on the ground, sleeping in bed, and leaning casually against the kitchen counter.

The cat _hasn't_ walked in on Soul nibbling Maka's neck until she moans as they spoon on the couch, or Maka groping Soul's arousal as she playfully straddles him on the ground, or him massaging her breasts as they suck face in bed, or her running her hands through his hair as they grind their hips together, braced against the kitchen counter.

When they're out, Maka always knows whether anyone else is approaching. They've been asked, "Hey, what are you guys doing there?" a few times - especially in quiet alleyways and deserted corridors - but Soul has gotten great at shrugging and saying, "Just talking about some mission stuff", while Maka has gotten great at smiling and saying, "Just wondering what was back here."

Of course, they usually have excellent self-control. They're both naturally private about their intimate lives and mostly choose to wait until they're in the relative solitude of their own apartment, behind closed doors.

But sometimes life has been busy and it's been hard to get a moment alone.

Or sometimes something happens. They're reminded how dangerous their job is, that every day is a gift. One does something the other particularly appreciates.

In any case, it is nice to disregard how far they are from home if he really wants to wrap her up in his arms, kiss her soft lips and smell her sweetness, nibble her ears while she runs her hands through his hair and pulls him close, drown in her _entirely_.

They haven't told anyone yet. Sometime soon, someone will find out, and then so will everyone else, but it will be on their terms.

* * *

**"Can you just hold me?" anonymous prompt**

There are still anxious, sleepless nights. Even nightmares, sometimes. It's not madness in the same urgent way as before - just the subtle struggle of everyday life, common to all humans.

It's not as drastic as when he had the Black Blood. Things have certainly improved for both of them since then. But their underlying fears, those little things that the madness would exploit to infiltrate their souls - those fears never exactly go away. It's funny, because on the outside, they're opposites, and you would think they would simply have opposite fears, but deep down they approach the same anxiety from different directions.

They feel inferior.

Soul is still a mystery to her at times, and this seems like a failure on her part. Maybe it's the music. She knows she can't doubt his loyalty as a weapon, and she's finally confident that he cares about her as a human being, but sometimes that obnoxious little voice in the back of her head still reminds her that strictly speaking, he doesn't _need_ her. She has to just trust that people don't always leave, has to give up control in the matter, and that is absolutely terrifying.

She also can't banish the thought that she did a woefully incomplete job of rescuing Crona. Sometimes, she is able to find contentment, knowing that her friendship made the difference in the fate of the world, knowing that her friend finally knew peace and love and human kindness before deciding to stay on the moon. But still, sometimes, late at night when the sky is alarmingly black, she'll wonder if she could do better, if there would have been a way around the fate Crona met if Maka had just been stronger.

Maybe someone who was stronger could have had them living alongside humanity again.

As for Soul, people are starting to figure out who he is and it makes him nervous. He likes himself enough now that, well, it's usually fine, but how can he be really sure that he's any good? Or that he doesn't look like a fucking jackass in front of everyone? That they aren't just being polite, or that he won't fuck up spectacularly at the last moment?

He also has to wonder about his continued relevance to Maka. He doesn't have doubts about his ability to be a good partner in battle, but really, she's achieved her goal by making him a Death Scythe (arguably) more powerful than her father. And he's lost the Black Blood, so while that's great for both of their peace of mind, he can't help with accessing Crona on the moon or anything like that. She's such a goal-oriented person he finds it hard to believe that she isn't just bored by him at this point.

So on occasional nights, twice a month perhaps, one or the other ends up pacing quietly around the apartment. Neither ever wakes the other - they just sit in the living room, with the TV on very low, sometimes with a cup of tea. The malaise will balance on their shoulders and slip into their stomachs until they've let their now-cold drink spill in their lap or woken up with a cramped neck, ten minutes before the alarm is due to go off anyway.

It is a year before they end up awake on the same night. In fact, it happens to be the anniversary of the battle on the moon.

Maka is on the couch first, sipping tea. She's allowed herself a few tears, not because life is so horrible, but because it's a way to take the pressure off once in a while.

She is surprised when Soul comes out of his room looking alert, ignoring both the refrigerator and the bathroom. He's staring at his feet and doesn't notice her until he's almost plopped down on the couch.

"Why are you sitting here in the dark?" he asks, eyebrows furrowed to oppose her still-raised ones. "And…why are you crying?!"

"I'm not crying," she insists impotently. "I'm just thinking. Can't sleep."

"Yeah, well, you're not the only one."

He doesn't press the issue. Instead, he sits beside her, closer than necessary. He has no idea where to take this conversation next, but having Maka here is a nice distraction from his restlessness, despite the fact that she's the source of that restlessness.

They're going to graduate soon, and something deep down has been telling him, listen, you're gonna have to make a move, but not yet. It's not quite the right time. Don't screw up the timing.

They sit for what must be ten minutes straight. It occurs to both that this would usually be awkward, but they're Soul and Maka, so it's not. He catches her sniffling.

"Uh. Anything I can do?"

She shakes her head, eyes fixated on the shut-off TV, before sniffling again. "Actually, can you just hold me?"

He should get an award for not looking surprised by this. "Hey, you're the meister - aren't _you_ supposed to be holding _me_?"

Her gaze snaps over to his eyes and he offers a cheesy grin before she scoots the already-miniscule distance between them and wraps her arms around his torso. He's warm, having been hunched into himself after climbing out of a toasty bed, and while fears are just a fact of life, the welcoming way he pulls her close does banish quite a few of them.

She's so _little_. It's funny, because he's started to notice this lately, and yet it does nothing at all to diminish the power of her presence. He wonders if she notices how he changes when she holds him, how his embrace becomes slightly reminiscent of the way one curls around their only source of heat on a cold night.

* * *

**"Someday I'll pick up the courage to ask you on a real date." Prompt fill for ilarual.**

Dammit. He knew he was gonna forget something. It would look really bad if he showed up to the Important Diplomatic Thing without wearing a tie.

This, to him, was evidence that it was not as important as they all said…but whatever.

On his way back to his bedroom in the apartment, he could hear Maka yammering away on the phone in her own room. She was talking to her mother. He walked quietly, knowing she cherished these conversations and that she wouldn't want to be disturbed during a call this important. He tuned out everything she said for the sake of politeness, letting her voice hum comfortably in the background.

Still, while putting on the infernal tie, he couldn't help but register it when she said something about him.

It had started with something about the Death City carnival, which was last weekend, blah blah blah.

"Soul had a lot of fun, too," Maka was saying. There was a long pause, followed by a nervous laugh and "Ahhhhh, not officially. He told me he had a good time, which is unusual for him, you know? He's not very straightforward. I almost went and said 'okay, someday I'll pick up the courage to ask you on a real date!', but I decided not to—"

Soul didn't hear much after that. He did cough loudly to alert her of his presence, full of guilt about the mostly-accidental eavesdropping, but it was also impossible to wipe the massive grin off his face as he left the apartment. She wouldn't feel good about having him either barge in on her conversation or miss the meeting, but he had just accidentally discovered the answer to a question he'd been asking himself for years.

And it was the answer he wanted, too.

Before leaving, Maka's room had fallen silent, so Soul thought it would be fine to knock on the door. When he did, he heard an unnaturally high-pitched "Come in?"

He peeked around the door. Maka was sitting in bed reading a book - but wait, it was upside-down.

"What is it?" she demanded, looking flustered.

"I would like to go on a real date with you sometime, Maka," he said, pronouncing her name with great care and intention. If her cheeks were red before, it was nothing to how they turned.

"You did hear," she gaped.

"Sorry," he added. "It wasn't really on purpose."

"It's - all's well that ends well, right?" she smiled. "After the meeting?"

"After the meeting," he agreed.

The meeting - why they sometimes asked both Soul and his meister to come and why they would sometimes only ask for one of them was beyond him, but it had certainly worked to his advantage this time - dragged on for a full two hours. When he got out, he took a quick trip by the florist.

* * *

**"How am I supposed to concentrate when you're kissing me?" prompt for two anons.**

This is so stupid. He's tied a million ties and yet he keeps screwing this one up. But, well, it's the morning after their first time…

She's embracing him from behind, has her face in his back. For once, he's taking longer than she did to get ready, but only because he fell back asleep and woke up an hour too late. She musses a hand, finely-gloved in sexy black, through his hair.

"My weapon's such a lazy bedhead," she murmurs.

"You're not making it any better," he grouches. He can feel her lips, soft but so insistent, kissing the back of his jacket. It's not made of thin material, but he keeps imagining her lips on his bare flesh as they were last night.

"What, Soul? Did the rich boy forget how to tie a tie?"

Even as she says it, he finally succeeds. He turns around, giving the tie its final adjustments and her the most disarming smirk he can manage. "How am I supposed to concentrate when you're kissing me?"

"You're not." She tugs on his tie, pulling them closer together so she can pepper his chin with little kisses. He caresses her back, lets his hands follow their own will down to her perfect ass (it's warm through her dress, hot damn) and pull her closer into his hips.

"Ah, wait…if we– we're gonna be late," she mumbles through a searing French kiss.

"You're not acting like you care," he says slyly.

"I should, though…this is important. Let's go." She takes his hand and pulls him toward the door with a resigned sigh.

"We could be fashionably late," he suggests, his voice lascivious.

Maka pauses, looks him up and down with reddened cheeks, thinks about it. "We'll ruin our nice clothes," she says. "That would be a no-no here."

"Fiiiine."

As she locks the door, Maka gives him a wink. "It'll be better if we hold off until this is over, right?"

And when they get back in the afternoon, they barely even make it through the door before they're all over each other again.

* * *

**Pop Song Criticism**

_Every time that you get undressed_  
I hear symphonies in my head.  
I wrote this song just  
Lookin' at you, oohh-oh 

As he dusts, Soul thinks idly that at least he can sort of relate to the lyrics of this horrible song, in some way.

Maka really likes to put popular music on in the apartment during cleaning days, which happen like clockwork on the first weekend of every month. She also likes to dance around to it and sing the lyrics in a breathy, quiet, slightly off-key voice while she does chores.

When he was younger he would just tease her mercilessly (she would stick her tongue out and sing louder). Now he just laughs mysteriously every now and again, enjoying the suspicious looks he earns from her.

She's pretty cute.

Anyway, the horrible song. Soul has mixed feelings about pop music. Very frequently, it is technical garbage, although occasionally a musician with genuine talent or a legitimately well-composed song will make an appearance. However, he stands by his opinion that it's important to understand all kinds of music, so he suffers through whatever the lowest common denominator deems appealing.

Admittedly, he even enjoys the stupidest songs at times. They're usually catchy.

But judging from the very beginning, this song might actually be _relatable_ , which is both rare and dangerous. He has, after all, been comparing his meister to music lately. And he can only imagine what her music would sound like in more intimate moments…

_Yeah, the drums they swing low_   
_And the trumpets they go_   
_'Doot-doot-doo-doo-doo-doo-doot-doot"_

Soul grimaces as the lyrics take a turn for the absurd. _Okay, you lost me on that_ , he thinks. And then–

_Is it weird that your ass_   
_Reminds me of a Kanye West song?_   
_Is it weird that I hear_   
_Trumpets when you're turnin' me on?_   
_Is it weird that your bra_   
_Reminds me of a Katy Perry song?_

By the end of the song, Soul cannot hold himself back from blurting, "Yeah, but Kanye West, Katy Perry, and Coldplay are _absolutely not_ symphonies. How can you try to compare a girl to a symphony and then wind up with - _that_?"

Maka is currently cleaning the table, and she chimes from the kitchen, "You're so uptight, Soul. It's just for fun! He's not being literal, he's just talking about music in general."

"Like you'd know," he grouses, because it wouldn't hurt anyone to use specific musical words correctly, but still he drifts into the kitchen to help. She hums her appreciation when he starts on cleaning the counter. They should get a prize for being the cleanest tenants.

The radio has long since moved on to the next song.

_Boys only want love if it's torture_   
_Don't say I didn't, say I didn't warn ya_   
_Boys only want love if it's torture_   
_Don't say I didn't, say I didn't warn ya_

And in a moment of indignation, Soul mutters, "Bullshit."

"Hmm? What's wrong now?" Maka asks. He can tell she's trying to keep the irritation out of her otherwise-playful voice. Maybe he was a bit too vehement.

"Ah, I dunno, nothing. I just don't like the lyrics. Catchy song, though," he says, hoping to divert the conversation.

But Maka's not distractible enough for that. "Hmm? Why?" She's quit her task now and looks at him, head cocked to the side, while he does his best to keep cleaning as if nothing has happened even though the counter is probably already surgically sterile. "They're not serious. It's just for fun."

"Eh, I know." Soul shrugs.

"Are you mad because it stereotypes men?" she asks, eyes narrowing in suspicion.

He sighs, resigned to explaining himself. "That's - not exactly it. It just makes me think of myself, I guess. And how if I ever had a girlfriend, I wouldn't want us to have that kind of relationship. It wasn't really a criticism of the song."

Maka's reached a whole new level of curiosity as she stares at him. In one innocuous statement, he may have said too much.

"If?" she asks.

"Well–"

"I mean, that would be fine!" Maka said in a hurry. "You don't have to _only_ date women, I just assumed–"

"Maka, no, it's not that–"

"Oh, I mean, you don't have to date _anyone_ , not everyone wants to date," she revises, now scrambling for words and turning a flustered shade of red.

In spite of his nerves, Soul lets out a little chuff of laughter. "You're overthinkin' it, nerdbrain. I just didn't want to say 'when' because you never know if - if you're gonna meet someone you want to be with. Who also wants to be with you."

" _Ohhhh_ ," Maka murmurs. "Ah. I get it." And she's wearing a tight, inscrutable smile. "Haven't met that 'someone' yet, huh?"

Shit. There is no correct answer and his face is heating up so fast it might melt off. "I, uh. That's…hard to tell. You know that, right?" He tries to swallow the nervousness. It doesn't work. He offers a cocky grin. It's probably not convincing.

Maka snaps her attention back to chores, grabbing the broom from where it rests against the counter. "It's alright. I was just curious. But you're a - a good guy. I'm sure when you do meet someone, they'll also want to be with you."

She can't disguise the sadness in her voice and it tugs at his heart. But now he has an idea.

Maybe this means it's time.

Soul clears his throat to get her attention. She seems to realize he's staring right at her, so she returns his gaze.

"Would you want to go to dinner tonight?" he asks.

Her lips curve upward into a timid grin. "You don't mean like we usually do, do you?"

"No. A little different." He licks his lips.

"A date?"

"Yeah." Why was it so hard for him to spit that word out?

"Sounds good," Maka answers, and she's beaming.

A few minutes later, they haven't said anything more; Soul is in the other room folding laundry, still flushed, still beaming. He'll probably be blushing until tonight. But he hears Maka laughing from the kitchen.

"What's going on?" he shouts.

"Soul! This is that song that reminds me of Marie."

He turns his attention back to the radio.

_If you could take my pulse right now,_   
_it would feel just like a sledgehammer._   
_If you could feel my heart beat now,_   
_it would hit you like a sledgehammer._

Well, his heart is certainly pounding, and he has a feeling Marie would approve of tonight's plans if she knew about them.


	11. Chapter 11

**Untitled Fluff Drabble**

The first time Maka calls him "sexy"–

She mumbles it through a kiss. Soul feels the word as it comes out of her mouth, and it tastes like honey and arousal on his lips. He tries to think about whether he's heard her say that word, and he kind of _has_ \- but he thought she was teasing.

They're making out on the couch, and it's not the first time, but it's a recent development, and he's so, so glad to hear her call him that in this particular moment, because he's been wondering if his hardened sex pressing into her thigh is erotic or pathetic.

In a thrilling reflection of their flights in the sky, she's on top of him. He pulls her forward so he can whisper in her ear. His voice trembles a bit, isn't as silky-smooth as her hair, but he perseveres. "Yeah, but you're hot as _fuck_."

* * *

**My car got stuck in a blizzard and yours was the only house with a light on AU (Secret Valentine for AmberLehcar)**

He really, strongly considered not opening the door. He didn't believe in ridiculous monster stories, but he still couldn't quite wipe out the idea of something emerging from the blizzard to eat him alive. In the realm of worries that were slightly more realistic, he wondered why someone would be out in this storm and knocking on his door. Also, he was wearing his pajama pants, the sky blue ones with the little dog-bone patterns all over.

Soul peered through the peephole and saw a petite – girl? Young woman? He couldn't help noticing that she was wearing her hair down and had ice all tangled in it. What kind of asshole doesn't open the door for that?

So he opened the door.

"Hi," she shouted over the wind. The ice was melting around her face. "Sorry to bother you, but my car's in a ditch and – do you have a spare room I could camp in for a little while? Until the storm goes away?"

"Uh." He blinked, and she blinked back. "Yeah, okay, come in." Inviting strangers in during a blizzard? Smart move, Evans. But a person could die outside in weather like this.

"Thanks!" She gave him a bright smile.

And as soon as she stepped in and he pushed the door shut behind her, she had melted gallons of water all over the kitchen floor. At least, it seemed that way. She looked around and whistled. "Wow, it's so cozy in here!"

Soul shrugged. "Yeah, it's my parents' place." And it had all the necessities for a cozy winter's day in: a log cabin interior, a huge living room complete with fireplace, a loft above. Most importantly, it housed no other people at the moment. Soul had gotten his fill of socializing during the holidays, thankyouverymuch.

"Sorry I got snow all over the floor."

"It's fine. I'll worry about it later."

The little blonde stood stiffly, clothes soaked. Only then did he realize she was wearing deep-green hospital scrubs and also holding a bundle of something in her arms – more clothes? The fabric on those was as thoroughly soaked as the scrubs she wore.

"My name is Maka, by the way." She held out one cold, cold hand.

"Soul." He accepted her handshake.

"So, ah, Soul. Do you have a place where I can change?"

He looked, dubious, at the sad clump of clothing and grinned. "You could go to the bathroom, but I don't think there's a point. It's all wet."

Maka glanced down and made a face. "So it is. Well, ah, it's fine – I'll work it out."

Soul nodded. "Alright, then. Bathroom's that wa– hey, wait."

"Hmm?"

Offering this could cast him as a permanent creep in her book, depending on how cynical a person she was, but it seemed…right. He had plenty right now and she was marooned in a blizzard.

"I do have a bunch of extra clothes. It's up to you," he said, holding his hands up placatingly before she could speak, "but it's an option."

Maka glanced over him and paused, mouth open. Oops. He'd goofed up.

"Are all your clothes that fashionable?" she asked at last.

"What?" he began. "Excuse me, but who knocked on my door unannounced soaking wet in the middle of a blizzard?! I didn't exactly have time to style my hair, you know–!"

For all his indignant sputtering, Soul did feel a bit better, because clearly she was comfortable enough to laugh. And laugh she did. "I know, I know, sorry. They're cute. I'll take whatever you've got."

xxxxx

Maka found herself in a strange man's bathroom changing into pajamas that were two sizes too large for her. They were navy blue and covered in an odd, unique little pattern, small orange blobs with faces on them, and they were amazingly soft.

The idea of wearing a stranger's clothes was odd, but not as off-putting as she might have expected. She had to admit to feeling an immediate attraction there; while she'd club him with the heaviest object within reach if he made anything that could be construed as "a move," she wasn't disgusted by the theoretical idea that maybe, after getting to know each other and after he earned her trust and proved he wasn't a scumbag, she might want to be closer with him. Some people might not have found his weird teeth and crazy hair appealing, but she thought it was endearing how he could look at once like a demon and a puppy.

How absurd to be having these thoughts, honestly; she would probably leave his house and never see him again as soon as the storm let up. Ah, that reminded her - getting her car out of the ditch was going to be awful.

Might as well not worry about it too much for now.

When Maka returned to the kitchen, she found the floor dry and a wet clumped-up towel to the side of the front door. Soul was at the counter, back to her, stirring a couple of mugs.

"That was quick," she observed.

Soul turned around, a mug in each hand. "D'you drink hot chocolate?"

"I love hot chocolate!"

He nodded and placed her mug in front of her. "Good. Let's lay out your clothes in front of the stove."

xxxxx

Soul asked the one question he'd been dying to learn the answer to.

"Why were you driving around in a blizzard, anyway?"

"I got out of work. I don't work tomorrow so I didn't want to stay there," she answered with a slurp of her hot chocolate.

"At the hospital? What do you do?"

"I'm a nurse," Maka answered proudly. "I go between the ER and the neuro wing."

The conversation was casual, not too forced but still a tad awkward thanks to the circumstances, and they were relaxing quite nicely in front of a rerun of _Who Wants to Be a Millionaire_ (dear LORD the girl loved trivia; he tried in vain not to find it funny and cute) when the power went out.

"God. Dammit." Soul grumbled.

"Uh oh," Maka whispered. "At least the stove is still on, right?"

"Yeah, it'll be fine." He glanced over to the pile of wood by the kitchen door. "Just annoying, that's all."

"Pffft. Oh, well. Now it looks like we have to actually entertain each other," Maka said.

"Can't promise much," Soul answered.

"Well, we can start with the piano." Maka pointed toward the instrument in the corner of the living room - not the grand that Soul was used to, but a console, more for atmosphere than for the fine art performances his parents preferred at home. "Do you play?"

"Ah, yeah, sort of," Soul said, knowing full well how evasive he was being.

"You should show me!"

"Fine," he said, entirely trapped and used to performing for people like a trained monkey anyway, "but it's not exactly gonna be the best sound. We haven't tuned this thing in ages."

"I won't know the difference," Maka said with a twinkle in her green eyes. "I'm just curious."

He sat down at the bench. "Okay, then. What are you in the mood for?"

"How about… _Let It Snow_?" she laughed. Shit, fuck, fuck, shit, he already had a crush on her laugh. And on her abominable taste in music.

"We really _don't_ need to let it snow right now," he groused. "Also, that's a Christmas song. That was over a month and a half ago."

"Nonsense, we're stuck here so we might as well set the atmosphere, right?"

Soul sighed. "Okay. I've never played this song, but I do know the tune."

"You've never–?"

"My family has always been really focused on complicated pieces. It's weird, but I never got around to some of the simpler stuff, you know? Let's see…"

xxxxx

When he started, she wondered if there was some kind of mistake. She didn't recognize it.

But oh, there was the familiar melody.

Soul _played_ , all right. In fact, he played like a concert pianist. She had a sneaking suspicion that was exactly his profession; off the top of his head, he not only knew how to play this melody he'd only heard and never tried, but he also added a lot of embellishment. And feeling. At first, she expected not to like it as much as the version's she'd heard sung on the bus, on the radio - but the music resonated with her so deeply, and it did indeed set the mood.

It gave her goosebumps, made her hyper-aware of the snow falling outside and the scent of the wood in the stove. It was the kind of music that tingled in her brain, made her heart feel warm.

"Wow," she breathed when he was done. "That's my favorite version of that song now." And she glanced around, heard the fire crackling and saw the warm tapestry hanging from the wall behind the television. "This - with your music - it really is like a scene from a book."

Soul put his hands to his face in mock embarrassment. "Of course you would say that."

"The hell is that supposed to mean?" Maka asked; she was playful, but injected a bit of venom into her voice, just in case he was about to be a jerk.

"Nothing, just that I've known you for three hours and I already know you're a huge nerd."

"What's wrong with that?"

"Nothing," he repeated, shrugging with a poorly-concealed grin. "Am I done now?"

"If you want to be." She stuck her tongue out, and they returned to the couch, this time with a warm fleece blanket each.

She told him about her job, about her career aspirations and why she chose her field, about what it was like day-to-day in the hospital. He told her about where he usually lived, an hour further north in the state, and how he'd come out here to relax and compose a little. She rambled cheerfully about some of her favorite books, he about his favorite movies. And they dipped further into their personal lives, he opening up about his family when she started ranting about hers.

Her last memory of being awake that night was of grinning smugly to herself when she noticed he had fallen asleep first; her first experience in the morning was of still facing him when she woke up and thinking she'd like to kiss his unguarded face.

In the morning, after breakfast, the sun shone on the blinding white landscape, and they set to tunneling out of the snow and excavating her car on the road.

He had to admit that she was a million times faster at shoveling than he. The little weirdo was making twice his progress.

When he realized she was ready to leave - AAA had removed her car from the ditch - he worked up his courage and opened his mouth to ask an important question.

"Hey, Soul?" she interrupted.

"Hmm?" he hummed, trying not to sound startled.

"I'm kind of sorry I have to leave. Want to exchange numbers so we can hang out sometime?"

"Sure. Give me your phone," he grinned. And as they traded back, their fingers brushed.

"Tomorrow night?" he suggested hopefully.

She beamed. "Sounds great. I get out at five."

* * *

**Forsaken GIF Challenge: raining-down-hearts**

Usually, it's more time-effective and less risky to take an airplane than to fly Soul out to wherever their mission of the week happens to be.

But this was the least-conveniently timed flight in history. Or maybe it had been a poorly-timed confession, for them to admit their feelings for the first time in the airport right before boarding, but the lady at the desk had confused them for a married couple and Soul had rejected the notion and when she'd expressed her hurt he'd taken her aside and said–

Well. Something very personal. Then he'd kissed her far too chastely until they heard their boarding call. Now here they sat on an airplane, so close together, in light too bright for a makeout session around all these other people.

They had been casting shy glances at each other for four hours. Oh, there was the usual thrill of holding hands and leaning together. Now was finally the moment she'd have a chance to do more, though, and she was being held back by public decency, something she had not expected until this very moment to resent.

"I apologize for the inconvenience, folks," the pilot started, which was not a great opening. "But we're going to have to circle for a little while due to a weather disturbance at our destination. You may feel some turbulence. We should be landing in an hour."

Soul sighed with impatience and they exchanged a frustrated look. If she couldn't touch him soon, she was going to explode.

* * *

**Forsaken GIF Challenge: l0chn3ss**

"You don't get to 'bro' me until you get all our clothes back and Patti doesn't prank us for a week straight," Soul groused from the driver's seat.

"But bro, we just have to one-up her again–"

"No way. This shit ends now." They were in the car in _nothing but towels_. Was this illegal? Maybe. He didn't know if wearing only a towel still meant public indecency.

Somehow, his idiot roommate had gotten into a prank war with the brutal Patricia Thompson. She must have had help, certainly from her sister, maybe from some of her other housemates…

…Because she'd managed to steal all of both of their clothes.

It was well-orchestrated to a terrifying degree. Soul had been in the shower when she had managed to break in, apparently - although, in retrospect, Black Star had probably left the apartment unlocked - and take off with both of their clothes.

One panicked call to his roommate at the gym revealed that his clothes were missing from the locker room there, too. _Even the really grubby socks at the bottom._ And then all that was left was confronting Patti and her housemates from the scant protection of bath towels.

"How closely has she been watching us?" Soul wondered aloud in horror as they approached the girls' door and Black Star knocked.

"Do you surrender?" Patti bellowed as she swung the door open with a flourish. Liz looked smug from where she leaned against a wall in the hallway.

"Neve–"

"Yes," Soul answered flatly. "And if this starts again, you leave me the hell out of it."

He was feeling pretty cool, calm, and collected, really, until Patti's cute-nerd housemate showed up to find out what was going on and made eye contact with him.

* * *

**Failed Catharsis (April Fool's Day)**

Maka let her tears fall uninterrupted on the couch.

At first, it had been hard to cry. She'd had that feeling she was about to throw up, but couldn't quite yet, and there had been restlessness, no sleep, no appetite, but no tears either. While it was trite to think about how sudden it had been, how nobody had expected it, how they could have all appreciated him better, maybe even protected him somehow, she couldn't let go of those thoughts, either, nor could she make them _stop bothering her_.

His last words weren't "I love you." They weren't "Goodbye" or "I'll miss you."

His last words were "I'll see you later."

He was such a beautiful person, so loyal. Perhaps she'd always seen him through rose-colored glasses in a way, but she honestly could not think of a single flaw of his that didn't charm her.

The word "dead" was heavy on her mind, in the back of her throat. She was used to death, of course, could even be said to worship it in an odd way she'd considered healthy. But this - this was too much. Even Death Children feel loss.

She clutched the binding in her hands. In it were memories, important ones. In it, he still lived. She hated and loved having this in her possession.

She had let herself become vulnerable with feelings and didn't expect the door to the apartment to swing open at that moment.

"I– whoa, Maka!" her weapon, her ignorant, innocent weapon, asked. "What's the matter?"

She bit her lip and stared at the rug through tearful eyes. "You wouldn't understand."

Soul raised his eyebrows, then chuffed when he realized the source of her misery. "It's that book, huh? Didn't go as well as you were hoping?"

Maka nodded, but put on the most defiant face she could muster through so much damn water.

He shook his head. "Yeah, I don't get it– Don't look at me like that! I know how much those books mean to you. And I'm sorry."

She gave her weapon a small smile to show appreciation for his gentleness. "I should have braced myself better. It wouldn't have made sense to finish the series without killing off someone important, even though the last book was so upbeat overall. It really caught me off guard."

Soul plunked down on the couch next to her. "Yeah, I mean, maybe the author has some kind of master plan." He rubbed slow, soothing circles on her back. "Is this why you weren't eating or talking this morning?"

"Yeah," Maka admitted. "I got too wrapped up in my thoughts."

He grinned. "Nerd. I was afraid you were sick or something really horrible happened."

She stuck her tongue out. "I feel kind of sick and something really horrible did happen."

Soul kissed her on the crown of her head, so smooth and casual she could have missed it if she wasn't always alert to her weapon's actions somewhere in the back of her thoughts, and stood up.

"Want me to get you some tea?" he asked.

Maka nodded, real-life joy and fictional depression battling for her heart and mind. She leaned back on the couch and stared at the ceiling.

Half an hour later she smelled something sweet that was definitely not tea alone, and her partner brought over their tray with two piping teacups and a pile of quick-bake chocolate chip cookies.

"You sure this is all _just_ about the book?" Soul asked, sliding their snacks onto the coffee table, sitting down beside her.

Maka sighed and tried not to sound defensive. "Yeah. He was my favorite character. Favorite _favorite_. Easily one of my favorites of all time."

She received nothing but a satisfied grunt from Soul. He didn't question her, even though she knew it wasn't entirely true.

"Okay," Maka said in a small voice. "Sometimes my thoughts about stories do get tangled up in my thoughts about life."

Soul nodded. "I guess that's what they're for. Are you okay?"

"Yeah. It's nothing unusual." That was something he'd understand. The story made her think of how dangerous their jobs were, about how Kid was immortal and would one day bury all of them, about how Crona was still up there on the moon and she hadn't even figured out how to go back there yet, about how she missed her mother even though she wouldn't admit it, about a million little, nagging stressors with deeper meanings than she'd care to acknowledge. But he'd also understand that she knew how to deal with those things, and that she just had to let off some steam.

He took her hand. The last time she did this and he teased her about it was years ago. He'd grown up enough not to be a little jackass anymore, to express his concern like an adult should, and the thought pulled her mouth into an unwilling grin.


	12. SoulxMaka Week 2015

**Day One: Geeking Out (Part 1 of 3)**

Soul practically bounces through the front door (in comparison to his usual movement, which is more of a "prowl"), and she knows they had the record at the store this time. He's finally got it, and he's going to wolf down his dinner and disappear into his room for the entire night. She'll see neither hide nor hair of him but she'll hear the tones through the walls if she stops and listens. He'll keep it down, but it won't be totally inaudible.

"You look happy," she says by way of greeting, and offers a genuine smile.

"Hey," he answers, raising his hand in a wave. "They had it!"

"That's good - I'm happy for you."

"Yep. I've been looking forward to it all week." He's on the couch studying the album cover. It's not fair to expect that they'll do the same thing every Friday night, but she would be lying if she were to say she doesn't want him hanging out with her instead, as he usually does. She has probably burned the bridge of "invite-me-into-your-room-and-play-me-music" a long time ago, though, when she had informed him she hates jazz.

She doesn't, anymore, but it feels weird to just tell him out of the blue: "By the way, I've decided to give jazz another chance."

Maka goes on with preparing dinner - her turn, dammit. Rinse, bread, spice, heat. Somewhere between dumping the chicken in the frying pan and flipping it, Soul startles her by clearing his throat from the kitchen table. She employs all of her carefully-trained meister-nerves not to jump, and to focus instead on the trepidation in his voice as he speaks.

"Wanna hang out with me? After dinner, I mean, while I'm listening to the record?"

She turns to give him a bright grin. "Yeah, definitely!" In her enthusiasm, she narrowly avoids flipping their dinner from the frying pan. Soul favors her with a pleased chuckle and a shy unwillingness to make eye contact while he studies the credits on the back of the cover.

* * *

**Day Two: Cuddles (Part 2 of 3)**

Through their entire partnership, she still hasn't spent much time in Soul'sroom. Oh, sure, she'll barge in to wake him up sometimes, but for the most part, each treats the other's room as a space not to be invaded for too long. After all, living rooms, not bedrooms, are for spending time together.

So it's no surprise that going in, Maka senses she's been invited to share something personal - especially where The Last Deathscythe, introvert among introverts, is concerned.

They start off sitting side-by-side on the bed. Maka glances around the room while the music starts, noting that the table at the side of the bed has gotten a little bit cluttered with papers. Her weapon is leaning against the wall with his eyes closed, lids fluttering on occasion. He seems to feel the weight of her gaze, and though he flushes, he murmurs, "It's better if you close your eyes. Too many visual distractions otherwise."

She takes his advice. It's hard, though, with him there, to focus on something other than how close they are. _Just lean in_ , she thinks. _Lean on his shoulder and if he complains, tell him the music is boring and you were falling asleep._

He doesn't complain.

"Usually I like lying down better," he says after a few minutes.

"You can - you can go ahead," Maka tells him, heart sinking. Maybe he wants to get away.

"No, I mean - if I do that, you should, too. You can squeeze in next to me."

"Oh." _Ooooohhhhh._ She just fits between her partner and the edge of the bed when they both lie on their backs. It does not stay that way, though, as they can't stop angling toward each other.

Soul finally gives up the charade to pull her into his arms.

And now, Maka thinks, she _has_ to pay attention to the music, because she wants to be in his world like she's in his embrace.

Without further interruption, they listen.

* * *

**Day Three: Catharsis (Part 3 of 3)**

She's surrounded by his body heat, breathes in his smell (clean laundry, generic man-deodorant, and something else that's warmer and impossible to describe). Maka takes a deep breath, uses her steely resolve to tamp down the anxiety and hope that's bubbling in her chest in favor of listening to something he cares about so much.

There's an empty and expansive quality to the sound. It's like gazing into a sprawling desert, or perhaps into the rolling waves in the middle of the ocean. Maka manages to lie there, motionless, contemplating the eerie noise, trying to figure out what she's supposed to absorb from it. It makes her feel small, reminds her that human life - Soul's life - is so vast, and she can't be all of it. They're lying here together now, but the music will end.

Something high-pitched starts up. Maka has no idea what the instrument could be. She might call it "whiny," but she also has to admit it focuses her melancholy with laser intensity, effectively draws it out of her heart.

This is one of many reasons it's hard to like experimental jazz.

"Maka? Are you crying?"

Ah. Yes, a couple of tears have landed on his shirt. She should have been careful about that.

"No," she says.

Soul tenses and draws back enough to look her straight in the eye. "Yes, you are. What's wrong?"

"The music," she answers, sniffling sheepishly. "It made me sad, I guess."

Soul chuffs, but the corners of his mouth don't turn up in a proper smile. "Okay, but what's really wrong? It can't just make you sad. It has to bring something out that was already there."

He will see past any lie, she knows. Maka looks away and murmurs, "What's bothering me is… I'm not sure you can ever feel about me the way I feel about you. Or the way I want you to."

By the time she dares to look back, his lips are already pressing softly on her mouth. And his voice rumbles in her heart.

"I love you. If that's what you're talking about, I'm sorry for not letting you know sooner. I guess I was afraid of the same thing."

After that moment, the same music is less desolate.

* * *

**Day Four: Dragon (ties in with my Harry Potter AU, "Take Up The Mantle")**

_Year 5, January, Care of Magical Creatures._

They were on the coolest field trip ever - a trip to New Zealand, of all places! - but thanks to the Portkeys Professor Free coordinated, they didn't have to stay for very long, and they would only get to miss about one day of classes.

It was a bright summer dawn here, and the sun spilled over the hills, not quite reaching the depths of the valley yet. Maka probably had enough energy to bound ahead of all her classmates, but she chose (he had a feeling, anyway) to stay toward the back of the pack with Soul. He groused about her energy level to cover up his appreciation.

"Okay, kids, you gotta be quiet now," Professor Free stage-whispered from where he'd stopped up front. "Anyone who speaks gets quiet with magic. We don't wanna attract attention." He brandished his wand threateningly.

As if on cue, a pair of enormous pearly wings unfolded in the misty valley.

Some students, Maka included, couldn't hold back gasps. They were given a warning look from the professor, but the dragon either didn't hear them or didn't care as it took flight, rose like a ghost from the fog and landed on the crown of a tall tree. It crouched and bobbed its head, eyeing something hidden out of the class's sight.

Antipodean Opaleyes may have been known for their nonaggression, but it still made Soul want to grab Maka's hand and run. He almost had a heart attack when another dragon rose from the fog with a bellowing roar; it pursued its partner, who had taken swiftly to flight and uttered a number of deep rumbles. Did dragons laugh?

"Amazing," Maka whispered as Free gave up on keeping everyone silent. She was already moving in the direction the dragons had gone. Did the girl have no sense of self-preservation? "They're like angels."

Soul had to dash forward to keep up with her. Only when she turned back and gave him a mischievous look did he realize she was goading him to follow. Her chuckles reminded him of the dragon teasing its mate.

* * *

**Day Five: Night Swimming/Skinny Dipping**

Maka started a splash fight immediately as they waded into the lake together, naked, daring, perhaps a little high on life from getting to spend this night relaxing in the cabin. He swept his hand along the surface of the water, sending it right back at her, and she laughed, leaning in to kiss him briefly, a distraction before she splashed him again.

They hadn't gotten to the _good part_ yet when there was a hellacious wail from somewhere close by - something very inhuman - and shit, they'd accidentally found a lake monster. These things were supposed to be elusive!

"What was that about the mission not starting until tomorrow?" Soul groaned as he transformed. Maka didn't answer, too busy backing out of the lake to get better footing as the creature (some kind of human zombie melded to an alligator, apparently) pursued her.

It was weak, and it didn't take much to dispatch it. A brief tussle in the shallows had its soul glowing bright in the air above the water. (Soul would be lying to himself if he didn't acknowledge that he sort of liked watching Maka fight naked…)

"The hell is all the noise?!" a gruff, unfamiliar voice growled, and there were footsteps in the leaf-litter by the cabin–

"Shit," Maka murmured, and Soul was jostled as she blundered into a tall shrub to hide her naked body. "Don't transform," she hissed.

The eye on his blade rolled skyward. "Thanks for the tip."

"Hello? Hello?!" the voice was still calling. He was an older man, probably a clueless civilian.

"Ah, yes, everything's fine - we're just here on - on Shibusen business," Maka called from her concealed position in the bush.

"Ah, it's you!" The quality of the man's voice changed. "It's nice to meet you. Chief of Police Raybury, at your service. I just wanted to stop by, say hello real quick before the official meeting."

"It's nice to meet you too, Chief," Maka answered, sounding very convincingly not like a naked person hiding in the woods.

"Why don't you come out of there, say hello properly?" he asked. Soul could hear the uncertainty in the man's voice.

"I'm sorry, sir," Maka said, deceivingly calm. "But I really, really can't do that."

* * *

**Day Six: Worth It**

"Just out of curiosity, what is it that bothers you most about it?"

"I mean," Soul says in his guarded, thoughtful manner, "Prom has always seemed kinda shallow. Everything's about the image. And it's not even a particularly classy image…"

They're out for a sunset stroll, and Maka hasn't even tried asking him to go with her because he's made it clear since they were freshmen that he doesn't want to go to Prom. Well, that and the fact that she's afraid of rejection and afraid of screwing up their friendship and basically afraid of _everything_ , but it's mostly the "too cool for Prom" issue.

"Ah, I see," she answers, failing to keep the resignation out of her voice. Now she has to choose between going alone and not going at all, if Soul suggests some kind of anti-Prom night. Either way isn't what she would have had in mind for the end of senior year.

"But if you wanna go, then I'd like to go with you."

Maka nearly gives herself whiplash turning to look at him, because she must have misheard something. But the bright red in his cheeks indicates that she's heard correctly. His flush brings out the color of his eyes, though he won't look directly at her. Before she can respond, he adds, "No big deal if you don't wanna do that, obviously. Just an offer."

"I'd– first of all, yes!" she almost-shouts. He makes eye contact again and gives her an unguarded grin. "But why? I thought you wouldn't want to go? You've always said it was stupid, ever since you were a kid!"

He shrugs. "Eh, it'll be worth it."

* * *

**Day Seven: Coming of Age**

It seems like _everything_ is a new coming of age.

Becoming a Death Scythe - he's complete now, right? No. Defeating the Kishin still lies in front of them. And after that, he learns to play his music for people and grows up again.

It doesn't stop there. The first time he tells Maka he loves her, the first time they kiss, he feels a bit changed, too; not a different person - but someone who is living more honestly. The first time they make love, he feels a sense of wonder that was just never possible before.

Sometimes Soul wonders if he's losing ground. Like when he and Maka have a bad fight, shouldn't they be grown-up enough not to yell? It's only months later, when he looks back on it, that he realizes they had to go through it. Like a particularly dangerous monster or a grueling obstacle course, it's helped them grow.

He wonders when they'll be complete. Will it be when - if - he composes his magnum opus? When, if, the Kishin is really and truly locked away forever? When and if they meet Crona again? If Maka brought love and courage to the heart of every human being, would there be anything left to do?

On the day of his wedding, while he watches his bride walk down the aisle all green eyes and smiles, he thinks about how far she's come and how proud he is that he could help, probably, in some way. And he vows to keep it up through…

…everything.

And he realizes that the answer is no, there is no such thing as _complete_. They'll keep growing forever, they'll never stop learning from each other. There will never be a final rite of passage, not until their deaths.

But they'll live on in the next generation, so maybe not even after that.


	13. 40 percent kissing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From now on I'm going to be uploading stories one at a time! This one was inspired by a tumblr post by "starry-nightengale".

"Hey there, Soul," Maka said. "Funny seeing you here. I'm waiting for a blind date. What are you doing?"

"Oh, I'm also waiting for a blind date. Say, did they tell you to look for a guy in a red jacket at 7:45 exactly…?"

Maka looked over Soul's red jacket with a poorly-concealed smirk. "Oh, my goodness, I sure was!" she said, louder than was strictly necessary. "Are _you_ the person Kim set me up with?!"

"I think I am! Darn, Kilik told me I was having a _real_ blind date," Soul answered, also uncharacteristically loud. "Oh, well. I want pizza, so let's go in anyway."

"Gosh, I can't believe they set me up with my own partner," Maka said. As they sat down at the table, she leaned in and dropped her voice to a whisper. "How am I doing?"

"Terrible," Soul muttered, and she kicked his leg. He kicked back for a moment before she shook her head.

"Nono, Soul, don't let them see us playing footsie."

"Oh my gods, are they _watching_ us? This is stalking," he hissed.

"It is," Maka said, prim as she straightened up and opened her menu. "And they sent us to Tombstone for a date? It's not really that kind of restaurant…"

Soul shrugged. "Might as well make the most of it. I call not paying."

He received another kick under the table before they ordered and ate.

* * *

"So, guess we should just go home now," Soul said with a stretch and a yawn.

"Yeah, I guess so," answered Maka, still detecting their friends' wavelengths nearby. "Might as well turn in early. It's a busy day tomorrow, right?"

No sooner had Soul shut the door to their apartment than Maka received a text from Liz, fishing for information. How many people were in on this?

_LIZ [9:20 PM]: so? ;)_

"They really need to learn how to mind their own business," Soul said, sidling up to read over her shoulder, wrapping his arms around her. He kissed her cheek. When she turned to reciprocate, though, her lips kept pulling back in a huge grin.

"What's so funny?" he asked, though he couldn't keep a straight face, either.

"They just tried to follow someone with Soul Perception," she giggled. "They know me. I'm famous for it. _Why would they do that_?"

Soul peppered kisses on her neck between his own chuckles, making her laugh even more. "I don't know. Kim's a witch. Shouldn't she be thinking about magic stuff, like, all the time?"

"Apparently not."

And she tried to kiss him, she really did, because she wanted to get back at her friends by having a romantic tryst with her already-boyfriend-partner.

But the feeling of smug satisfaction haunted her, and she couldn't stop snickering every time she got close to secretly doing the thing her friends had been trying to push her toward in the first place. Each time they touched their lips together the mirth would return full-force. Each time she lost control, Soul would also start to chuckle, which encouraged her further, which only pushed _him_ further, fueling an ongoing resonance of laughter and tiny kisses.


	14. Clear skies but so cold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for Giriko-style violence mentions? It refers closely to what happened in the Sloth chapter. It's a weather-inspired story prompted by an anonymous tumblr user. The original prompt was "Clear blue skies but so cold that it hurts to breathe."

The warmth of deep sleep wore off right away when Soul saw Maka's peaceful face and started thinking about _himself_ again - a recurring problem.

She, too, had fallen asleep on the couch. Slouched onto his shoulder, actually. At the time, it was nice: after hours and hours in the Book and hours more being fussed over in the infirmary in the middle of the night, they had staggered back up to the apartment, bandaged but still scraped, cut, bruised, sprained, exhausted.

Being able to close his eyes was at first the greatest physical relief he'd ever felt, and supporting her as she leaned her total weight on him just in time to fall asleep was his greatest emotional relief. It allowed him to truly rest.

Now the rays of the sun woke him up, and there she was, and that feeling of relief turned to a shard of ice in his belly. He could see a bruise Giriko had left on her forehead.

Yes, her suggestion that they should end the partnership had been profoundly disturbing. Yes, it had been terrifying to watch her give up and accept death as Giriko screamed in her face. Yes, there was a sense of grim satisfaction about being able to defend her with his weak body long enough for her to get her fire back. But the feeling that stood out the most was _guilt_ , because had he done something to convince her that she was some kind of burden?

He could hear himself in Giriko's words, a little bit - just tiny seeds of similarities, maybe Giriko's willingness to comment on her body. Something in his mind resisted: _No! I was never that bad, everyone says things like I do sometimes. I was just teasing. She knows it doesn't matter. She knows me. We've come so far together._ And on one hand, it was true - Giriko had voiced sickening notions that had never even occurred to Soul before. They were so, so different.

But after seeing Maka give up on herself in front of him and then again in front of Giriko, he had to wonder if, perhaps, it had not felt as different to her as he would have liked.

She stirred, stretching, and turned red upon opening her eyes right next to his face, though she stubbornly remained where she was.

"Morning," she murmured.

He took her hand and squeezed it, running his thumb lightly along each bruised knuckle. "You okay?" he asked, voice deep enough - he hoped - to convey the real gravity of his question.

Maka offered a small but genuine smile. "Yeah, I'm good."

"Sorry."

She opened her mouth, about to respond, and decided to close it, nuzzling her head against his shoulder. "It's okay, Soul. We're all okay. I'm happy about that."


	15. Could we just take it easy?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Makapedia. Full prompt: "I'm really sore today. Could we just take it easy and cuddle today, please?"

Maka snored like a kitten. In the dusky pre-dawn light, Soul grinned about it, a little smug, a little adoring, while she was still asleep and couldn't catch him in the act. Thank Death for irresponsible hotels giving them just one king-sized bed instead of two twins.

She rolled closer to him, perhaps not as deeply asleep as he had thought. With caution in his heart, he wrapped an arm around her, encouraging her even closer.

There they stayed, the scent of the hotel's shampoo filling Soul's nose. He refused to move even though her hair tickled his face with each exhalation. Finally, after what could have been minutes or hours, Maka stretched and whimpered lightly.

Shaken from bliss, Soul frowned. "Are you okay?"

She nodded, head bobbing under his chin. "Yes. It's just that I'm really sore from the fight, so…can we could just take it easy and, ah, cuddle today?"

It took a moment for her words to sink in. Soul blinked and murmured, "Yeah, I think we have time for that."

Maka took a deep breath and turned to her back, pressing her face under his chin. He couldn't see souls, but he could feel hers, fluttering warmly beside his.

Soul should have known it would happen like this, far too intimate for fanfare.


	16. Death City Spin the Bottle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For AwesomeAsUsual; inspired by a tumblr post by "powai."

"Let's play Spin the Bottle!" Patty suggests. Soul chuffs, expecting Liz to try redirecting her sister and everyone else to somehow avoid the subject.

But Maka completely shocks and dismays him by saying "Good idea!" as if she _wants_ to kiss everyone in the room, which Soul finds inexplicably offensive. As it is, all of the-group-formerly-known-as-Spartoi is already assembling in a blobby shape that's probably intended to be a circle.

He almost gapes at Maka, but settles for huffing and muttering, "You guys have fun. You can count me out."

"Aww, Soul, you'll be fine," his partner says, putting a warm, ungloved hand on his shoulder. He has the urge to resonate with her at the touch, but what she's suggesting is…

"You want me to play?" he asks, eyes wider than usual. He hasn't felt this anxious in, what, two years? Three years? And it doesn't really make sense; it's just a mildly awkward, stupid game.

"Yeah, obviously! I mean, you might not last that long, weapons are usually at a bit of a disadvantage–"

"Not me," Patty says, giving Maka a cheeky wink.

"–Well, a _lot_ of weapons are at a bit of a disadvantage. But it's still fun. Show us what you're made of!"

Soul sighs and scoots more into the "circle." He should just get this over with. He's trying his best not to explore what, exactly, bothers him about this interaction (it's Maka's eagerness to see him kiss someone else).

"I hope I don't get you, though," Maka adds from beside him, an afterthought. "That would be really awkward."

The realization is like being punched in the gut: he wants to kiss his meister…and she doesn't want his kisses.

"Okay, obviously, I think I should go first," Black Star announces over the din of Soul's anxiety. "After all, it's my bottle we'll be using." He puts his bottle - a recently-drained energy drink - on the ground and spins it wildly.

It finally comes to a rest pointing unmistakably at Soul. Everyone else in the circle makes a hushed _Oooooh_.

"Go for it!" Maka says brightly.

"Alright, looks like you and me," Black Star says, grinning, as he hops up and into the center of the circle.

"What the fuck," Soul mutters, not entirely sure how he's standing up on legs made of Jell-o. "What the fuck." He looks back at Maka, and she's giving him two thumbs up. He looks at Black Star, who's standing there expectantly.

"Look, I dunno if I can really do this," Soul begins. "I don't–"

"We'll make it quick, then," Black Star insists, sinking into a decidedly aggressive stance. "On your guard?"

"Wait, wha…?"

"Three, two…"

Soul panics. "Dude, I'm _not_ gonna kiss you."

At that, Black Star pauses, bewildered, and Soul hears a shriek of laughter from Liz. He wonders what's so damn funny.

"Oh Death…it's been so long, I forgot…Soul, are you thinking of _civilian_ Spin the Bottle?" she asks, giggling.

"Oh," says Maka, putting her hand to her mouth and turning red.

"There's a difference?" Soul asks, holding his head. It doesn't hurt, but he needs to hold it anyway.

"Uh, yeah. Sorry, I thought you knew," Maka answers, blushing more deeply. "The way we play in Death City, you have to fight whoever the bottle lands on. You don't kiss like when the civilians play it…"

"Nobody could have told me this sooner?!" Soul fumes.

"We thought you knew!" Tsubaki repeats, giggling but somehow still earnest.

"You've been here for five years," Kilik adds helpfully.

Soul is in a glass case of emotion. Through the confusion and embarrassment, he's relieved - but now he has to deal with a burning desire to kiss Maka and no opportunity to do so.


	17. Jealous Kiss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompted by soulffles on Tumblr.

Somewhere in the back of her mind she knows a first kiss born of jealousy should be considered inadvisable, at best.

But dammit, he's hot (in ways she _promised_ herself she'd _never_ notice about a man) and she's hormonal and so is everyone around them. Including the twelve women and ten men she's caught making eyes at the Last Deathscythe.

…Okay, so she might be making assumptions. So maybe Soul has only even _spoken_ to twenty-two people in total all night. She's just projecting her own wishes onto everyone else.

But still, there's no time like the present; they're assigned to a table with this pretty red-haired politician and Maka's absolutely certain this one is flirting for real.

Maka puts a hand on his leg, and naturally, he turns toward her, because he's wondering what that's about. "Soul," she smiles, and he's too surprised to even stutter when she plants a first gentle-but-ardent kiss on his lips.

She's belatedly afraid he'll jerk away. He doesn't.

It's longer than she's intended to take before she hears a quiet "Oh" from the other occupant of their table.


	18. wallet photobooth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ilarual had this idea and I wanted to write a very tiny something for it. It’s maybe not precisely what she had in mind, but it seemed like just the right scenario for them.

“Didn’t we take these…six months ago?”

He’s sweating bullets. “Uh. Those are - ahah, I forgot those were in there,” he quavers. This is not entirely untrue. He’s so used to their presence that when he had asked Maka to grab a few bucks from his wallet, he hadn’t considered that she would find the pictures, too.

Maka looks up with an intensely skeptical grin and flushed cheeks. “Are you sure, Soul? Because there’s no clutter in your wallet. I know you keep it clean.”

The truth of the matter is that he’s had plenty of opportunities to take their little photobooth adventures out of his wallet, and every time, he’s balked and left them in. He loves knowing they’re always nearby; as a sensual person, Soul can get a bit sentimental about physical links to his best memories, pictures he can hold and look at, even if he doesn’t do it often.

(There are six pictures on the sheet - it’s long and bent to the fold of his wallet. He remembers what each captured moment felt like. Maka had effectively used her puppy eyes to get him into a photobooth one day, and for the first picture, they’re both just staring at the camera, a typical posed shot. But Maka had told him she didn’t like pictures that were too serious and gave him bunny ears for the next [did she know that civilians think bunny ears mean ‘turn around and kiss me’?], and the final pictures had captured the resulting lively flirtation.)

Soul shrugs, trying to be nonchalant about the red dusting his cheeks. “What can I say? I think they’re fun. Didn’t wanna just leave ‘em sitting in a drawer somewhere.”

He’s promptly squeezed into a warm, short-person bear hug by his meister. “You’re such a cute Death Scythe.”


	19. you owe her

One day, Soul is meeting with a civilian law enforcement officer. The subject of the black moon comes up in passing, and the man takes it upon himself to mention that he’s heard of Maka’s wish to eventually bring Crona back.

“Look, I know you know the girl _pretty well_ and everything, but just between you and me, it’s a stupid idea, you know? So…like that book about the guy who was too optimistic, _Donkey Hotey_ or whatever.”

Soul takes a deep breath and counts to three before he says something _more_ unprofessional than he can safely get away with.

“Yeah, you’re right, it _is_  a pretty wild idea. I don’t blame you for questioning whether it’s right. But you know what?” Soul puts the intensity of his feelings for Maka into the glare he gives the officer. “You owe your sanity and your life to that idealism, so try being a bit more respectful.”

The man nods, gulping, and doesn’t try to get away with his snooty attitude again.


	20. it's just me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains a sex scene, not terribly explicit but still there.

She leans her head into his chest, delighting in the grasp of their hands together. Her skirt swishes around her ankles, and his heart pounds in her ear as he whispers her name. “ _Maka_.” She looks up, met by his red, hooded gaze.

“Can I–?” he asks, eyes flickering to her mouth. She beams up at him, pulse bounding, and chooses to close the distance without a word.

Soul’s kiss is so delicate; his lips tremble as he tightens his embrace.

“Hey, Soul…it’s okay. It’s just me,” she whispers, her words ghosting across his lips - she still wants his warmth, doesn’t want to pull away even to speak. He smiles and she kisses his teeth.

* * *

 

He peppers her face with kisses as she focuses, poised to take him all the way in. Her hand is steady and reverent around him. But she hesitates, so he asks if everything is alright.

“I just…wanna be good at this,” she mutters.

Performance anxiety? He can’t help chuckling, even through the heady rush of passion that makes his voice rough. They are themselves and they are _together_  - history says that whatever happens, it will culminate in something great.

“Hey, Maka…it’s okay. It’s just me.”

Maka’s smile electrifies Soul even as her body surrounds him.


	21. Commitment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to fabulousanima for giving me the inkling of an idea.

She always worried he’d draw away from her if she tried to embrace him outside of what they considered a _serious situation_. Maybe it was because he was so cagey about _everything_.

Maybe it was because fear never really dies.

But one night, the moment was perfect, and Maka decided to stop letting anxiety rule her choices. She and Soul, along with Black Star and Tsubaki, were out in the Maine woods at night, chasing monsters that were taking advantage of the Halloween season. The air was cold, and the tents were just about adequate for two people each.

It was like something out of a book, really.

So when the fire was out and everyone had bundled up for the night, Maka waited several anxious minutes, then rolled over from her side of the tent.

Oh, he was already facing her. She hadn’t expected to roll so close to his face, and at her small gasp he opened his eyes blearily.

“Mmmaka?” he murmured.

Too late to back out. Well, maybe not, but either way, she would _not_ back out.

“Ah! …Hello,” she said, almost waving from the blanket before remembering to put her hand down. “It’s…cold,” she tried.

Soul chuffed, grinning slightly as his eyelids began to close again. “Cold as fuck. What d’you want _me_ to do?”

“I just–” she started, ready to snip and snipe their way to sleep. But his shuffling interrupted her, and before she could respond, he’d lifted aside his blanket.

“If you want,” he murmured into his pillow.

Maka scooted under Soul’s covers, pulse pounding in her ears. Oh, it really was much warmer under here. He put his arm down, covering her shoulders, and she was full of contentment and apprehension all at once as she slipped closer to him.

Oh, Death, they were spooning.

Soul said nothing about this development. She felt him rest his chin against her head, and guessed the unexpected lightness of his limbs might come from anxiety. She took a deep breath and squeezed his hand for reassurance. He became a bit heavier, and she smiled.

Lying down with Soul was an entirely different experience from their more vertical interactions, but there were common threads: the way their hands sought each other, Soul’s soft but sturdy touch for her.

Full though her heart was with contentment, Maka couldn’t sleep. She turned around, and judging from Soul’s responsiveness to her, he had not fallen asleep, either.

“Soul, I’ve been wondering. About our future.”

He nodded. “Me, too.”

“We still fight together a lot, and I think of you as my partner. But really, that time is over, isn’t it? You’re a Death Scythe. You’re not committed to me anymore.”

“I do have a commitment to you, though.” Soul fell silent, but she thought he might have been trying to search her face in the dark.

“I was thinking - hoping…”

“Yeah?” he breathed.

“Can I kiss you?”

“Yeah. Kiss me, Maka.”

It was short and chaste, but soft and sweet. Their fingers entangled again.

“After you’ve been my weapon partner, calling you a boyfriend sounds ridiculous. But I guess that’s sort of what I want you to be.”

He kissed her again. “We don’t have to _call_ it anything but a partnership. I’ll be here either way.”

She peppered his chin and neck in kisses, and they kept each other warm all night.


	22. sleep cute

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You're so cute when you're half asleep like this..." Prompted by fabulousanima.

It was 4:30 AM - three hours to takeoff - when a fully-dressed Soul joined her in the living room, hefting his packed bags onto the couch. He gave her a slow, bleary blink before he lifted his hand in greeting and murmured, “Hey.”

Maka laughed. She felt as light as air with an entire week’s vacation in front of them. “Wake up already! You’ve been up for half an hour.”

“Yeah, well, i’s’not fair to compare me to your… _weird ability_ to jump straight out of bed,” he huffed, but she was attuned to the telltale quirk of his lips even under those sleep-hooded eyes.

“Ahah. You’re so cute when you’re half asleep like this,” Maka said, blushing belatedly when she realized the weight of her flirtation. Oh, dear - maybe she was sleepier than she thought. She turned to pretend to fiddle with her own luggage, hoping he’d be too spaced-out to notice.

Much to her mortification, Soul was still and quiet for too long. Afraid to look at his face, Maka resolved to pretend nothing had ever happened.

“’Cute’, huh? Not really what I was going for,” he said finally as he came to plunk down next to her on the couch. Suddenly all that sleepiness was gone? She gave him a contentious growl and risked a glance at his face.

“But hey - from you, I’ll take it, you know?” he said, giving her a boyish grin through a deep flush.

“Pffft. Jerk,” she muttered, falling back to her standard defense mechanism of banter.

He chuckled. “Yeah, you’re cute when you’re flustered.”


	23. no edit short

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompted by Professor-Maka. The challenge: write for five uninterrupted minutes, with no editing afterwards.

Never has he known _want_ quite like this before.

The rare Death City rainstorm has made its one appearance on movie night, and it makes the world seem smaller, focused entirely on their little apartment, lit only by the flickering television.

She props her legs on his, and something about the shortness of her skirt gets to him. Soul tries to ignore it, reminding himself that this is the same way every movie night goes, but that only serves to remind him that he’s been in denial this whole time.

Maka’s legs are long and scarred. He wants to touch them, wants to caress each scar gently on his way up under that skirt, but that’s not the kind of thing you do without discussing it first. Right?

He glances at his partner, and she mistakes it for annoyance. “Sorry,” she says, twitching her toes toward him. “You’re a nice, warm footrest, what can I say?”

Lacking any sort of coolness, his resigns himself to continued secrecy.


	24. dark and rainy during a thunderstorm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A weather prompt from thefishywitchy.

It was supposed to be a nice visit.

It wasn’t so much, though. Soul sat awkwardly at the edge of the little twin bed as Maka curled in on herself under the covers. A war of words, more disturbing in elderly voices, was waged in the rest of the house.

Maka mumbled something.

“Hah?” Soul asked, leaning down to hear her if she chose to repeat herself.

“You can see where my family gets it,” she said. Soul, unsure what to say, remained silent.

“All my grandparents fight like this,” Maka elaborated, a dangerous sniffle in her voice. “You know, I thought Papa was the worst for betraying Mama. But at least my parents had the sense to break up rather than go on–”

“YOU’RE OUT OF YOUR MIND,” bellowed Grandpa’s voice through the wall.

“–Like that,” Maka finished.

Soul placed a cautious hand on the lump that was Maka under the blanket.

“What if w– I, what if I end up like that?” Maka asked.

Soul shook his head even though she wouldn’t see. “You don’t stay and yell, you stomp out,” he said with a bit of a guilty grin.

“Not helping!”

He sighed and brought his head down to rest on her shoulder. “You don’t need to worry so much, Maka. You’re learning from their mistakes too, right?”

There was a shuffling. “I guess.” She hummed. “You’re not innocent, either.”

Soul stuck his tongue out and blew a raspberry where he imagined her ear was. “I’m way cooler than your dad _or_ grandpa,” he sniffed, a secret test - or perhaps a hint.

“Yeah…” she said.

“I don’t like that hesitation,” he said, poking the Maka-bump under the comforter. She giggled.

“I’m just thinking is all,” she said, a secret in her voice.


	25. Bleary eyes and mussed hair

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompted by makapedia: "We slept in the same bed for space reasons but now we’re just waking up and there’s something about your bleary eyes and mussed hair."

This just got complicated. Not that he didn’t know something like this would happen; it says a lot that last night, he could picture exactly these feelings bubbling to the surface and had still said _sure, we’re partners, we can totally just sleep in the same bed for one night!_.

To be fair, it _has_ been complicated for a while, except there were mitigating factors that made things easier to avoid. But now he’s caught in that place between sleep and waking, when the correct defense mechanisms aren’t in effect. In this moment, waking up face-to-face with Maka, he’s forced to see her unguarded, eyelids fluttering in her dreams.

Her hair is burnished gold and soft. He’s touched it before, a little bit, for one reason or another, and kind of really wants to do it again. It’s probably warm now, too.

He can relate to her most in moments like this. Soul has always _admired_ his meister. He has always admired the enthusiasm she puts into her friendships, the energy she has to actually present herself to the world, her stubborn insistence on helping others. He is, however, an extremely private person, and enjoys these one-on-one moments the most. He likes to see how someone who is so caught up with other people is when she’s just…purely herself, no consideration for anyone else.

By herself, she’s a lot like him. There’s even an indelicate little dribble of drool to the side of her mouth, which she’ll be embarrassed about when she wakes up.

Soul wants permission to just reach over and wipe it off, but he doesn’t have that. He stares at her lips for a moment, very petite and probably kissable, before deciding that all of this mooning is uncalled for and reaches over to tap her shoulder.

“Psst. Maka. Hey, Maka - you’re drooling.”

He isn’t prepared for the explosion of butterflies in his stomach when her luminous eyes open by a fraction. “No, I’m not,” she says, swiftly wiping her mouth.

On catching his pensive expression, Maka gives Soul a long, inscrutable look, and he rearranges his face into something softer. Something that mirrors her truth a little better. Under the covers, she hooks her fingers loosely over his hand.


	26. Paralyzer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I know it's a dweeby old song, but I still really like it.

_Well, I’m not paralyzed,_   
_but I seem to be struck by you;_   
_I wanna make you move because you’re standing still._   
_If your body matches what your eyes can do,_   
_you’ll probably move right through me on my way to you._

_("Paralyzer" by Finger Eleven)_

* * *

 

Brotherly love was not going to blind Soul to the fact that Wes had fucking terrible taste in entertainment.

Soul sipped his beverage - some unsatisfactory vodka concoction that was not the social lubricant he was promised - and glowered at his surroundings. Sure, the club enforced a strict dress code, but personally, he thought that before they worried about their patrons’ appearances, they should choose less cheesy-ass neon purple lighting and better music.

To be fair, Wes did say that he wanted Soul to experience the club for what it was: a black hole of pretentious drama that probably wouldn’t last much longer. Soul had gone only because he was starting to feel bad about having said “no” to Wes’s plans for three years straight.

Soul glanced back at some stranger he’d noticed the instant he arrived. He couldn’t seem to lose track of her, nor could he put his finger on why, exactly; maybe it was because she kept staring at him, or just because she looked a little out of place, too. She was with a group of friends, who had probably gotten her in - the bouncers wouldn’t have allowed those oversized boots by their own choice, would they? - and she hovered with nervous energy just off the dance floor.

Her eyes were a piercing green, so vivid he had noticed them even in the club’s offensive lighting. Her gaze was not cold and she even smiled at him when they made eye contact, but she did give him the eerie, cliched feeling that she knew him somehow - that she could see in him what he was trying to camouflage.

She was the first unrelated person, _ever_ , in his _entire_ life, more than two decades on this planet, that he really wanted to get near voluntarily.

There was a mix of light and darkness about this mystery person. She put strange, specific images in his head that felt like memories but couldn’t have ever really happened: flashes of wings against the sky alongside dark-lit rooms decorated in red and black. Maybe the wings were visible through windows? The images were quick and vague.

He wanted, in fact, to _touch_ her, another sensation that was brand-new. It left him disturbed but intrigued. He wanted to help her dance tonight, because she was clearly interested in doing so and he kind of wanted to see what she would be like when she shed that self-consciousness. She did not seem like a person who should have been hanging around looking unfulfilled. She seemed like she should be the opposite of him.

Despite not wanting to lose his own self-consciousness too much, Soul sipped on his mediocre drink some more. Maybe it was starting to work a bit after all, if his consideration for dancing was any indication.

It wasn’t that he had never fantasized before, but it had always been so safe and abstract, never about a real person. Now here was a stranger he could imagine leading him into all the risks associated with human interaction. It was hard to imagine letting physical attraction get the best of him, but she might break that pattern.

He didn’t want to get ahead of himself. Or ahead of her. They hadn’t even spoken yet. She could think he was a creep.

Nerves overactive as usual, he put off talking to her, never losing track of where she stood despite his attempt to focus on another drink, something a little less godawful. How long would they have to be staring at each other before he could approach her in a way that seemed casual?

Shit, she could leave at any time. He’d be screwed. Soul bolted down the rest of his drink and stood, heart pounding because he had no plan. He was going to have to hope all these meaningful glances meant something to her, too, because all he had in mind to say was “Uh, hey.”

He made his way through the crowd. She was here, near the wall, where it was darkest. Not only had he seen her here recently, but something told him she was still here. In fact, a few friends of hers seemed to be appraising him–

The mystery girl crashed into him. Or he crashed into her. They crashed into each other.

“Oh no! I’m sorry!” she said, mostly to his chest. She looked up. “You’re tall.”

“Ahah, it’s fine, I messed up too,” he managed, pausing for an awkward beat before holding out his hand. A ray of light passed over it. “Uh, nice to meet you. I’m Soul.”

The girl looked at his hand, then laughed and took it. “I’m Maka.”

“Maka,” Soul said, trying the name on his tongue. It tasted strong and sweet and familiar. “So, um, what are you doing here?” He reflexively scratched his cheek. A stupid question.

She paid it no mind. “It’s Liz’s birthday,” she said, nodding toward her friend group. “We’re celebrating.” At his vague nod, she shrugged and put her hands behind her back. “Would you wanna dance, maybe?”

Any other time in his life, the answer would be “no way, I don’t do that in front of people.”

But as she stared straight through to his soul, squared her strong little shoulders and smiled like the break of dawn (familiar, familiar, familiar), he had the sense that he had said _yes_ before and decided it was going to be _yes_ again.


	27. I Like Your Face

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from nalufever: "we hate each other but we were invited to a mutual friend’s party and were warned to be civil so you complimented my costume and fuck you, i haven’t changed yet"

The weird tension between them has her a bit fascinated, and she almost looks forward to sparring verbally with him when they happen to meet. She’d be lying if she said she _really_ never wanted to see him again.

Instead of saying all that, Maka just tells Kid, “Yeah, of course I can be civil for one night! I’ll just…not talk to him.”

“Probably for the best,” Kid says, giving her an appeased little smile.

Seeing Soul in person, though, brings back that urge. It’s Halloween and she’s dressed as a badass witch - if ever there was a moment that could make her want to engage with Kid’s cagey, sarcastic troll of a friend, this would be it. Whether it’s a fight or a truce.

Maybe it would be the responsible, adult thing to do to compliment him. Those teeth are really interesting. Combined with his red eyes and stark white hair, he looks…unearthly. He’s shown up in what appears to be a three-piece suit and it’s just the most natural vampire look she’s ever seen.

“Hey,” she says, tugging his sleeve. He turns around, eyes widening in surprise at what is perhaps a more intimate gesture than she had intended. “I just wanted to say, I really like what you’ve done with your face and your costume. Very spooky.”

Soul narrows his eyes. “Hey, fuck you,” he says finally.

Maka’s brows knit together in an abrupt frown. “Well, fuck you too!” she snaps. “I’m not allowed to even _try_ to be nice?”

“What?! Insulting my _face_ isn’t _nice_ ,” he says.

“I wasn’t insulting your face. I was complimenting how you combined your normal teeth and hair with your costume. Calm down.”

Soul gestures to himself. “I haven’t put _on_ most of the costume! It’s a lot more than just a suit!”

Maka stares. The gears in her brain turn.

“I’m waiting for Black Star to get here with the rest of the shit,” he adds, initial offense giving way to a kind of wary patience.

“Oh,” Maka says, feeling small. “Well, I’m saying I _like_ your face, so…”

Far too late, she claps a hand over her mouth while Soul gawks at her, irritation forgotten.


	28. Halloween Blanket Fort

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from thefishywitchy: "i’m sick on halloween but told you to go have fun at the party anyway but instead you surprised me with a blanket fort, tons of candy and all my favourite scary movies."

Through a haze of nausea, Maka is aware of shuffling out in the living room. She told Soul to head out for the Halloween party two hours ago, so it can’t be him. It must be Blair. She curls further into her stomach and debates whether groaning would be a relief or a sick-inducer.

Some time later, she wakes to a soft knock on her door. “Maka?” It is Soul’s voice, after all. “I need to show you something. Can you come out here?”

Of course she can! Maka experiments with sitting up. Well, it’s not any _worse_ in this position. “Just a minute,” she mutters, and though she isn’t sure he can hear at first, he does hum an acknowledgment.

Walking to the door is okay. Maybe the worst has passed. She opens it up to see Soul leaning against the wall.

“Any better than before?” he asks.

“I said you could go to the party,” she says, more interested in why he’s still here than in her own stomach condition.

Soul shrugs, his standard response. “I did go. Was okay, but not that great. Come on, if you can?” he starts toward the living room, but glances over his shoulder to check on her. Maka nods as she follows, crampy nausea under control for now.

The living room is a mess. A _fun_ mess.

There are blankets everywhere, blankets they haven’t taken out of storage in years, propped up as tents over the chairs and couches and the TV. It’s one soft, multi-roomed fort covered in motley designs. Maka grins, nausea not exactly forgotten, but overtaken for now.

“I figured if you wanted, instead of having me go out and you stay here alone, we could just hang out here. With low-key Halloween stuff. I got some movies and a ton of candy, too.” He reaches up to scratch his cheek, a nervous tell he doesn’t seem to know he has.

Maka leans her head against his arm, only slightly regretting her unshowered hair. “There’s no way I can eat candy–”

“Oh, _shit_ , that’s true,” Soul interrupts.

“–but I could definitely go for a movie.” She looks up and flashes a huge smile, which he returns lop-sidedly before lifting one of the blankets so she can get inside. Ah, he even remembered to put the fluffiest comforter as the fort floor!

Twenty minutes into _It_ , Maka finds herself curling up, unable to see the TV. “It’s more comfortable this way…still sick,” she says, apologetic, to Soul’s questioning glance.

“Pfffft, it’s fine. I’ll watch the movie. You grab some sleep if you want.”

The dialogue from the movie and the warmth of Soul next to her lull Maka into a comfortable sleep, and when she next wakes, it’s he who has fallen asleep with his arm around her.


	29. Key of G

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A slight modification of an idea given to me by lunar--resonance on tumblr.

It’s exactly the same song. It’s lovely and nostalgic, but the realization that he hasn’t put together something new means she must attempt, guiltily, to quash the burgeoning of disappointment in her chest. As soon as it’s born, though, it transforms into curiosity.

Why come to this old cafe - the place she first heard his music - and play the same thing all over if there’s no point to it? So there must be a point to it. What is her evasive partner trying to get her to figure out?

She has half a mind to tell him to just say what he means.

Ah! There’s something. It’s a…well, it’s the same song, but now with a different sound. Happier, she thinks, in the way that wordless sounds can convey emotion. Maka feels confusion etch itself onto her face.

She glances at Soul from her spot next to him on the bench; his eyes are closed, and he might be turning a little bit red, or it might be the lighting. She’s sure of it: that change, that lift, is what he’s showing her! The song goes on for a while before he draws it to what feels like a temporary close, the last note expectant. So’s his face as he turns to look at her.

“It sounds…happier,” Maka says.

Soul rolls his eyes and grins. It’s reassuring. “It sure does.”

“What’s the matter? You’re the one who always tells me I don’t get anything about music, so why’d you expect me to understand?”

He shrugs and plinks out a simple melody with one hand. “It’s a reflex. Anyway, it’s been a while, and I wanted to show you…a change. You _did_ understand, Maka. You heard the difference. My idea was that the change…”

He pauses and goes quiet for a moment, until Maka almost speaks up.

“So the song represented me, like I told you at first. And I played that for you when we met, and again when we fought the kishin. But I wanted to do a separate version now. This version is me _after_ you came in.”

“Oh,” Maka squeaks.

“The change you heard was a switch to the key of G,” Soul adds. “Remember?”

The key of her soul. The key she’d chosen. “I remember,” she answers, suddenly lighter than air. She reaches over and puts her hand on his shoulder. “Thank you.”

“It’s not a lot,” he says, meeting her gaze. “I wanted you to know, though.”


	30. Every Dog Has Its Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Based on the country song "Every Dog Has Its Day" (yes, you can judge me, I know, I know).

Soul was in the middle of a swig of his favorite beer when he heard the band’s tune change significantly. A slow song - his cue.

“I’ll be back, Star,” he said, setting the drink on the table. “Gotta go find Maka.”

“Ah man, does she actually have you dancing now?” Black Star said. “I thought you hated dancing!”

“Well, I used to, but…I promised…”

“Just joking. Go get her, Tiger,” his friend winked. Ox, Kirikou, and Kid gave him some friendly waves while Harvar softened his face in what Soul assumed was probably also supposed to be a smile. Soul rolled his eyes as he turned toward the dance floor, where Maka would probably be milling with her friends. Those stupidass guys acted like he hadn’t been dating his girlfriend for a year.

To be fair, they were probably being nice because they knew he was uncomfortable dancing in public, and they did give each other hell over their respective girlfriends, too.

As he caught sight of Maka and started to wave for her attention, someone else stepped in front of her, obstructing his view. He couldn’t hear much from far away, but the man was very tall. He also looked greasy as hell. The rest of the girls - Liz, Patti, and Tsubaki - were giving him disapproving glares from their seats.

As Soul got closer, he could hear the man talking to Maka. Well, it would probably be more accurate to say he was “slurring” to Maka.

The first coherent words he could hear were “Hey baby, d’you dance?”

“Yes, I do - but not with you. I’m waiting for my boyfriend.”

“Naahhh little lady, I don’t think so—”

“Yes, I’m here,” Soul said gruffly, elbowing his way out from behind the man, who he could see from up close had a bad case of tooth decay, suspiciously reddened eyes, and very strange white streaks in his hair (not entirely unlike Kid’s).

He didn’t look too happy, which was immensely satisfying, and Soul shot him a glare in return. Even though he knew she’d never go for some harassing loser in a bar, having this guy try to make a move on his girlfriend took away every anxious thought in his mind and left him only with a desire to enjoy every moment of having her to himself.

Soul held Maka close and managed to pretend nobody was watching them dance. She smiled broadly the whole time, and as he realized the song was ending, he dipped her to conclude the song with a kiss. She treated him to a much-approving giggle and said against his lips, “Let’s do one more.” With a wordless grin, he conceded.

The next song was considerably quicker, so they adjusted their dancing; he wasn’t able to hold her as closely, but it was a lot of fun he hadn’t realized he’d been missing.

Suddenly, Soul felt a hand on his shoulder. He was about to turn around when he was roughly, rudely jerked backwards.

“I’m cuttin’ in,” snarled the greasy man from earlier. “Girls don’t say no to me. Ever.”

Soul balled up his fist and drew it back, getting ready to throw a punch, but someone beat him to it.

He’d known Maka would be seething. In retrospect, he thought, he should have expected to see her fist fly through the air at lightning speed and connect with the creepy stranger’s face. Her green eyes flashed, her own face red with anger, and she spoke through clenched teeth as the man tried to recover, clutching his bleeding nose.

“Every  _dog_ ,” she spat with all the vitriol she could manage to be clear that she was calling him not just a dog but a cur, a filthy animal, “has its day. But today just isn’t yours.”

And she took Soul’s hand to lead him away. Behind them, Tsubaki and Liz were still clapping and Patti cheered.

"Liz said everyone hates him,” Maka said. “He’s an abusive asshole. I’ve been waiting all night for a chance to sock him in the face.”

He thanked his lucky stars he had the coolest girlfriend in any universe.


	31. SoulxMaka Week 2017

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another year, another SoMa week! After spending 2016 on a specific story, I decided to go back to writing mini-drabbles for 2017. There's an extra at the end: an alternate prompt fill for "You Make Me Strong".

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for discussion of terminal illness and death in the Day 5 prompt. There's an alternate at the end of the document. Day 7 includes canon-typical violence.

* * *

**Day 1: My partner is... (theme: "confession")**

Soul brings courage, and so does the night.

Maka has to turn on a certain part of her brain to get poetic, she suspects. She loves writing in her diary, getting all those mushy thoughts out, but she’s always busy so it has to happen when she has a spare moment. It’s a trade-off; on one hand, writing things down makes them vulnerable to discovery. On the other, it’s easier to think when she writes. The bonus that breaks the tie is the fact that she can sort through her thoughts _without having to actually tell them to anyone_.

Now, at 2:30 AM in the low-light, she writes and thinks. Soul is on the other side of the couch. Anyone who didn’t know better would assume he’s dozing, but she knows he’s just focusing on the sounds from Death City’s music TV station.

Maka starts a list: _MY PARTNER IS_.

It starts with “good music” and progresses to items like “a favorite blanket” and “the graffiti with the heart on it that we pass every day downtown”. Everything’s getting a bit too romantic, so she tries adding more esoteric thoughts to disguise her feelings from herself - “weird noises in the walls,” “a sleepless night,” “a flickering TV.”

It doesn’t matter, though. No matter what she can think of, everything on the list is always something that charms her, even if it’s strange. Even if she knows he’d be insulted by it, it’s something that intrigues her in some way.

Maka looks over. He’s not sitting that far from her; their feet almost touch. 

There will never be any getting over this, being in love with her partner. Soul brings courage, and so does the night, both of them subtle, thoughtful.

Confessions don’t need to be verbal.

She drops her notebook next to the couch and slides nearer to him. He gives her a look with raised eyebrows, and she hesitates, wanting him to have a chance to pull back or to gently deny her touch. He doesn’t take it, instead reaching out, meeting her every action to touch more, more, more, until his arm hugs her close and their fingers interlace.

Their lips connect under blissfully closed eyes, the better to feel the heat.

* * *

**Day 2: But then I remembered (theme: "family")**

“She’s not my _girl_ , Gran.” Did he say that too quickly?

“Mother, he’s _seventeen_ ,” Mom adds from across the table, oblivious to the defensiveness of his denial.

Gran shrugs as she packs more chicken onto her plate. “Oh? I forgot what it was like to be seventeen once, too. But then I remembered.”

The Evans family barbecue has a perfect summer evening, a welcome change from the heat wave that had swept in with Soul’s plane. The sky is purple and dusky above their ritzy patio, but the Western horizon is much brighter. The sidewalks in Death City will still be baking in the late afternoon sun.

“Either way, we’re so glad you came to visit,” Wes says, as though Soul had arrived today instead of a week ago. Wes is like the family ambassador. “Maybe Maka can come see us next time.” Dad, who is displaying a rare lack of dignity under a layer of barbecue sauce, hums in agreement.

It’s odd, the contrast between here and there. Here, Soul belongs because it’s where he came from in the first place. There, Soul belongs because it’s where he chose to go. And more than ever, as refreshing as this return to his roots has been, he wants to connect to the place - the person - he chose to help him grow. The person he will choose again, if only the feeling’s mutual.

Gran has good instincts, as always. She’s just assuming he’s already had the courage to make a move.

Soul heads to his room in the too-big house, where the phone beckons from its place on his nightstand. It’s an old phone with brassy colors.

She sounds bright when she picks up - but that’s her _phone voice_. “Hello?”

“Hey, Maka.”

“Soul!” There’s her real voice. He smiles into the receiver and takes a deep breath.

“Got a few minutes? I was just, ah, thinking about you.”

* * *

**Day 3: Softer around the edges (theme: "clothes")**

Uh oh. It’s a change. This morning, Soul’s come into the living room wearing something she previously had to struggle to get him into: a black suit. And his hair’s not even spiked up!

She tries to crush the voices saying _Look, look, he’s all on his own, going back to his aristocratic roots. It’s the beginning of the end for you!_ There’s another idea in her head, too (although it feels more like it’s in her chest): he looks _too good_ , hair and eyes so stark against the black fabric, tailored shoulders outlining his frame.

“Something wrong?” he asks, swallowing rather noticeably. He seems nervous, too.

“Your outfit,” she says. She feels the fabric on his sleeve, absent-minded, before pulling her hand back; it’s more intimate than she’s prepared for to touch his clothes like this. “I mean, no, it’s not wrong! It’s just…different?”

“Ah. Yeah.” He shuffles his feet as he tugs on the jacket for a meaningless adjustment. “I figured the Last Death Scythe should look the part, right? Even if I’m still a student.”

Something about the way he says that restores a bit of heat to Maka’s blood. “You look good,” she offers.

Soul grins, roguish by default, and the tension breaks, at least for a moment. “Thanks. You think so? It’s kind of a dorky look, but other people seem to respect it.”

“Hey!” Maka huffs. “It’s not dorky.”

“Oh, like you’d know… _dork_ ,” Soul says, bustling forth as if to walk past. Instead, he puts a hand on her head and ruffles her hair - not enough to mess it up, though. She catches his eyes for a second. His smile is softer around the edges.

* * *

**Day 4: The view is fantastic (theme: "habits")**

He still likes riding the motorcycle. The wind in his hair, the extraordinary feeling of control as he drives a vehicle he was allowed to touch at a young age _only_ because he’s an agent of the DWMA, the relaxation afforded by riding a bike instead of having to walk or fly - these are sensations he’ll always enjoy.

No doubt: flying is quicker. It’s also _way_ more badass. And - not that he’d say it out loud - he gets to spend an exceptional amount of time between Maka’s legs.

That’s in scythe form, though, which is not the same as having her cling to his back while he drives, while they’re both in the flesh. For the most part, this is a time gone by. It’s a lot of effort to either shuttle his motorcycle around or rent one when they’ve been proficient at flying for three years now.

Anyway, Soul is in the habit of taking the occasional ride alone, just for fun.

This morning is a special treat. Maka was up when the sky was skill dark, so she caught him on the way out - the note he was scribbling to tell her where he’d been planning to go is unfinished on their kitchen table, several miles from where they now cruise in the desert dawnlight.

Maka has graced Soul with an all-out embrace. She’s not doing anything to hide how she’s leaning her head on his back, and she even offers a squeeze of her arms from time to time. The vibration of the engine is nothing compared to the almost-buzzing of sparks he feels in the places where she hugs. As cheesy as it might be, what else could he expect from himself at this point?

There’s hope in the morning sun and the golden dust of the desert road. There aren’t many turns or curves out here, and the visibility is as clear as the view is fantastic. So he drives one-handed, putting the other hand over Maka’s. Much to his delight, her gloves aren’t on. He caresses her fingers, her hard knuckles that lock with adamantine grips and her soft skin that she usually covers.

* * *

**Day 5: Be a mirror (theme: "you make me strong")**

When these two were in the prime of their lives, you would have been very nervous to hold counsels like this.

Now you’re used to it. Fortunately, they’ve outlived your awkward self-conscious phase. You are most concerned, as their friend and the guardian of death in this world, with their abilities to move on and rest in peace. There’s only so much you can do, of course, but your guidance might set them in the right direction.

First is Maka. Despite her greying hair, her eyes have kept their brightness on most days. Today, they’re dull and teary. Next is Soul, who isn’t as strong as he used to be. His deadpan humor has lost its edge. You meet with them one at a time first, talking them through their individual fears.

“We’ve been together for almost our entire lives,” Maka says. “We always knew we were going to die. I’m a Death Child, after all. But now that this is happening to Soul…it caught me off guard.”

“I’m not scared,” Soul says. “In a way, maybe it’s better that everything is so clear-cut - this is gonna be the thing that kills me for sure. I just can’t help but feel like I failed a bit, being the first one to go.”

You help as best you can. Maka, passionate and determined, needs you to be a challenger. Soul, as shy and thoughtful as he is, needs you to be a mirror. Over tea in the Death Room, you help each of them figure out how to accept it all - or, at least, how they will begin the long process of grief, which may one day become acceptance.

The last step: you meet with both of them together. This is only the second time that you have ever seen Soul in tears, and the first was decades ago.

“You have so much left for the world, Maka,” he says. “I believe you’ll be okay without me, but knowing I won’t be around to help just doesn’t sit right.”

“Soul.” Maka takes a deep breath and lets it go. It takes her a long time to respond. “You’ve given me so much strength over the years. And the same things I’ve learned with you are the things that will get me through when you’re…not around anymore.”

This is the most difficult part of your job, but it’s the heart of what it means to be a shinigami, and you’re glad you can offer your friends some company in their older years. You wish you had the resources to offer it to every human, but even shinigami don’t have infinite time.

“Then…let’s go home.” Soul takes Maka’s hand. “I have a few months. Let’s make them good.”

* * *

**Day 6: We both know (theme: "promise")**

A rainy night in New York. Neither the moon nor its anti-glow is anywhere to be seen behind all these clouds. They’ve been camping out in the subway, waiting for a monster, for six hours.

Six hours alone in a dark orange light with someone will open you up in ways you didn’t think were possible. They sit curled together, pushed against the stony wall, each other’s source of cozy warmth.

“I’ll do whatever you want. We both know what’s going on, right?” Soul murmurs. This many words, this much emotion on his tongue, is like a river overflowing its banks.

“Mmhmm. But I’m afraid. I want to, but I’m afraid.” Maka plays with his fingers between hers.

“I don’t want to do anything you’re uncomfortable with. If all you’re afraid of is messing things up, though, I know we can do it. I _promise_ you we can.”

She looks up, and the expression on her face makes her look like she’s been caught at something. Her hair is dusty in these strange underground lights. “What makes you so sure?”

Soul can’t hold back a chuckle at that. She’s so smart and she can be so sly, and she’s totally aware she can wrap certain people around her little finger, but she still doesn’t always remember her own strength.

“Because _you’re_ involved, Maka. You’ve shown me…” Words fail him now, and he just sighs, taking her one hand in both of his. “I don’t know how to explain it, but I think you’ve already shown me we can make it work.”

“And what makes you say that?” Her eyes are wide. Luminous. Her attention, at once overwhelming and hopeful, draws him even closer.

“Because you’re _you_. You’ve done so much that you thought was impossible, and then when we’re together - I’m always amazed, I guess. If anyone can make it work, we can.”

* * *

**Day 7: Dive in anew (theme: "in battle")**

It’s the promise of a weightless, soaring combat alongside Soul that makes her pulse thrum with exhilaration instead of fear when they approach a swarm of airborne madness-beasts.

“Get ready, Maka,” he reminds her in his tinny weapon-voice. She can hear his smile. It’s a comforting habit.

Maka grins. “Yup! I was born ready.”

These monsters are disturbing, globby beings that attach to nearby unguarded individuals in clusters until the victims suffocate. So far, the DWMA has found no purpose to their existence besides absorbing people’s bodies, so Maka and Soul, along with other teams around the world, have been dispatched to slay them en masse.

The simple creatures are a challenge in number only. Maka prefers not to look at them too much, instead swooping into the fray with a wide flourish of Soul’s piano blade; the music starts then, too, frying several of the enemies that the blade didn’t catch physically.

“Fuck yeah,” Soul breathes, the piano’s tempo increasing.

Maka is the onstage partner to a battle score of madness versus madness as Soul plays his very spirit into the air and she arcs his blade through swaths of enemies; a few well-aimed kicks propel her up and over the swarm, leaving her heart weightless and allowing her to dive in anew.

The music swells to match her movements, each arc, swing, and dodge. The thrill of soul resonance builds into a heat that the cold of the altitude can’t strip away. All within a few feet of Soul’s blade fall, either by its cut or by the force of its song.

When the aberrations finally decide to retreat, she has to give chase, the wind streaming through her hair and her skirt like Soul’s music through their connection.

* * *

**"Day 8", Extra prompt response: To be reminded (theme: "you make me strong" revisited)**

The Canadian spring is so young that its earth remains encrusted with frost. Maka kneels with her shirt off, clutching it to her chest, while her partner dabs experimentally with gauze at a painful cut on her back. She scrunches up her face to keep from flinching, and the roots of the trees where they're standing go blurry.

"Sorry," Soul says, absent-minded.

He can't possibly see her face from this angle. "It's okay," she says. "It doesn't hurt."

"I know what it means when you hold yourself like that. It totally hurts."

How dare he casually remind her how well he knows her? "Pffft. It's fine." It's going to take more than this to get Maka Albarn to admit to feeling pain. Once he's taped the gauze over the wound and she's pulled her top back on, Soul plunks himself at the base of the tree next to Maka.

"Ugh. That was too close for comfort."

"I wasn't expecting our monster to have that third arm coming out of its head," she admits. "I thought it only had two." Maka nudges Soul with her shoulder, lowering her voice. "Thanks. If it weren't for you paying attention, I'd be a goner."

"What's this about?" Soul asks. He's thoughtful, looking at her from under furrowed brows, generating a tension that leaves her belly full of fluttering butterflies even after all these years. "That's just...how we work."

"I've been thinking a lot lately." Maka huffs a sigh full of reflection. "Without you, I probably wouldn't be here at all."

"Hey, don't get on that," Soul says. His voice is soft; if he knows how her shoulders lock when she's in pain, then no doubt he knows what she sounds like when she's trying to hint at more feelings than she can articulate. "I'm in the same situation. You make me strong too, you know?"

Maka leans back against the tree, her jacket softening the rub of the bark. "It's nice," she murmurs in a voice she hopes will pull him closer, "to be reminded about that."

"Heh. Who made who the Last Death Scythe here?" He leans back with her, their shoulders touching, and gives her the same feisty grin he'd started the rest of their lives with at Kid's coronation.

"...That is pretty good, huh," she says, a thoughtful finger on her lips.

"I will totally take credit for reminding you, though."


	32. Up At Dawn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a quick fluffy drabble, loosely based on the song "Fire Escape" by Andrew McMahon. For redphlox, thefishywitchy, raythebrutallyhonestguy, snorlaxlovesme, and yoyos-on-the-wharf. Thanks for the prompts, all!

_Walking home, your hand in mine_  
Tattoos on the River Line  
Morning birds are taking flight  
Either way, I thought that you should know  
You’re my number one  
You’re the reason I’m still up at dawn  
Just to see your face

(Fire Escape by Andrew McMahon)

 

* * *

 

 

“Mm, so anyway, you never told me what made you wanna ‘take a walk’ at the asscrack of dawn,” Soul yawns, effectively acting casual.

He and Maka had been jostled together in the early train ride here, and he can still feel the thunking of the railway in his bones. Despite being alone in the car, neither had made any effort to move to a seat with more room.

Now they’ve found themselves on a bench in the outskirts of the city, where Maka has parked them. It overlooks a cemetery - always fond of cemeteries, those Death Children are. Beyond it, the sun is rising. There is no more space between them here than there was on the train.

Maka puts her finger to her lips. He thinks she’s only pretending to be contemplative, because she blushes  _very_ easily when she’s nervous. “Well, we were both up,” she says.

“It was a big night. I couldn’t sleep. Didn’t know I woke you.”

Maka glances down the street, where a flock of birds, disrupted by a lone moving car, is taking flight. “Ah. You didn’t wake me. After the party, when everyone else fell asleep,  _I_  couldn’t sleep. And it was going to be dawn soon. And, um, Soul Perception told me you were awake.”

“Ah  _hah_.” His syllable comes out as a misty puff in the crisp air. “So you came in my room and convinced me to climb down the fire escape.“

“Listen…I didn’t want to risk waking everyone in the living room.”

Soul nods. “I get it. But now everyone’s alone in our apartment.”

“Well, we’ll beat them back. For sure.”

“Sounds like a big  _excuse_  to me,” he says, putting on a big grin he’s always worn when he knows she’s about to get flustered. She does not disappoint, huffs and crosses her arms. The motion presses her arm against him.

“Well, maybe I just wanted to take a walk. With you,” she says.

“At  _dawn_?” He whispers, leaning toward her.

“It’s…” She waves her hand, a vague excuse for a motion, at the pink-gold light that’s climbing over the horizon, and makes eye contact like she expects him to just know what she’s thinking.

“Hey, Maka,” Soul says. He lowers his head, glances aside before looking back at her, feels courage swell in his gut when he meets her gaze again…and  _finally_  lets loose a question that’s been burning on his tongue: “Is this a date?”

Her eyes dart away, and his heart pounds, wanting them to come back, afraid for them to come back. Their faces are so close. “Do you  _want_  it to be a date?”

“You’re the  _only one_  who could get me out here at 6:30 AM for no particular reason, Maka,” Soul says. “So…yeah.”

“I couldn’t sleep because I was thinking about us. About how most meisters and weapons go their own ways after graduating, but we - we moved  _together_. I’ve liked you for a long time, but now seems like it might be right to…”

“Act on it?” Soul breathes, closer to her  _again_  than he had realized.

The tiny gap between them is closed, somehow - he doesn’t know how it happens, just knows that his lips are on hers. For a moment, there is nothing but Maka’s softness (the part she guards all the time) and some kind of spark jumping around in his heart.

Wait, hang on - he  _doesn’t know how it happened_?

“Hey, hey, sorry,” he whispers, jerking his head back just enough to get the words out. “Are you sure you–”

Maka answers by putting her hand around the back of his head. She tugs him toward her and kisses him again, more fiercely this time, the heat of her tongue licking his lips. Soul winds his arm around her, manages to pull her body close.

Her fingers run through his hair, gentle but grasping, caressing him all the way down to the skin like he’s a treasure she wants to get lost inside of. It gives him goosebumps.

They have to come up for air. His eyes don’t open right away, he’s so lost in the scent of her skin and the press of their bodies through two thick sweatshirts.

“Your hair’s soft without gel,” she murmurs. Soul snorts. What a silly observation. He moves his own hand to the side of her face; her cheeks are warm. And, he remembers, her kiss is warm.

Her lips…not a part of his meister he’s well-acquainted with. Well, better change that, right? He runs his thumb over them, the eternal pianist, learning by the touch of his fingertips. It makes her giggle.

“What?” he asks.

“You’re staring,” she says.

“ _You’re_  staring.”

“Wanna go again?” Maka asks.

Soul licks his lips, wanting so badly to taste her some more. “ _Please_.”

 

* * *

 

It’s much later when they head home, hand-in-hand all the way from the bench to the train to their new apartment, where they might have to explain to their friends where they’ve been.

“Thank you, Soul, for the date,” Maka says in an unusual, soft voice when they reach their building. She gives him a smile he knows she reserves for intimate moments, an expression she rarely shows in front of more than one or two people at a time.

He returns it, leaning over for one more kiss before they go inside.


End file.
